***TheMediaReport.com SPECIAL REPORT*** Five Things the Mainstream Media Can Do To Improve Its Reporting of the Catholic Church Sex Abuse Story

For the last several years now, TheMediaReport.com has provided hundreds of examples of the media's biased and unbalanced coverage of the Catholic Church sex abuse story. And, unfortunately, our weekly posts provide only a small glimmer of the overall problem.

But the purpose of this site is to arm responsible journalists with the facts about sex abuse so as to improve their coverage and hopefully lower the incidence of sex abuse in our society.

What can the mainstream media do to improve its reporting of the Catholic Church sex abuse narrative? Here are five suggestions:

1. Provide context

Contemporaneous accusations of abuse against Catholic priests are extremely rare, recently averaging in the United States only eight per year even deemed "credible" by diocesan review boards. Almost all accusations against Catholic priests involve allegations from decades ago. Yet you would hardly know this from the media coverage, which almost always makes it appear that abuse is still an ongoing and current problem in the Church.

Meanwhile, sex abuse is happening unabated today in our families, our schools, and other institutions because the media is fixated only with old accusations of abuse in a single organization, the Catholic Church.

As we have relayed a number of times before:

rampant abuse and cover-ups continue today unabated in our nation's public schools, with estimates that there has been "more than 100 times" the rate of sex abuse in schools that there ever has been in the Catholic Church;

Evangelical missions are said to be a "magnet" for sexual abusers today, yet rarely does the media make mention of this.

Yet the media continues to endlessly harp on the crimes committed many decades ago by priests.

2. Call out the bigots

Anne Barrett Doylefrom BishopAccountability.org

If a Jewish rabbi committed a crime, no reputable journalist would ever think of running to a noted bigot like David Duke and ask him what he thought of the story. But journalists never think twice about sprinting to the leaders of the anti-Catholic group SNAP to get an off-the-wall, hysterical soundbite about the "callous" Catholic Church.

One popular source for the media is SNAP's National Director David Clohessy. Clohessy is a former leader at the discredited activist group ACORN, and while he has demanded that the Church report every allegation of abuse to police no matter how flimsy or how long ago, Clohessy himself never reported to police back in the 1990s that his own brother Kevin, a Catholic priest, was sexually molesting innocent young boys. The irony that Clohessy is continually passing judgement on the Catholic Church is rich, but the media never notes it.

Then there is Barbara Blaine, SNAP's founder. Blaine was busted a couple years ago for writing a passionate letter to government licensing authorities on behalf of a friend who was arrested with over 100 images of kiddie porn on his computer.

And while these activists at SNAP, BishopAccountability.org, and the like claim their campaigns against the Church are simply about "protecting children," the undeniable fact is that almost all these groups have a not-so-hidden, radical, left-wing agenda, which they seek to advance under the pretext of fighting child sex abuse. Yet the media never makes mention of their real motivations.

3. Question the lawyers

The mainstream media invariably portrays Church-suing contingency lawyers as altruistic champions of the oppressed seeking justice for their clients. In truth, a number of Church-suing contingency lawyers are little more than buffoons in pinstripe suits in pursuit of the almighty dollar.

For starters, there is Southern California's John Manly, who, in addition to having a notable record of inflammatory remarks about priests, was cited in a shocking November 2012 news article with the claim that he was "fishing for victims" in the case of an accused priest.

Then there is the notorious Jeff Anderson, who is no stranger to readers of this site. Whether he is funneling cash to his friends at SNAP or filing another another kooky "stuntsuit" against the Vatican to get more media attention, the mainstream media never questions Anderson about his legal antics and his motivations.

4. Recognize the fraud

Suing the Catholic Church has become a multi-billion dollar industry just in the United States alone, so it should not come as a surprise to any clear-thinking person that outright fraud against the Church is occurring all the time.

Nearly half of all priests being accused of abuse today are long ago deceased, yet every time a journalist reports such an accusation, never does the journalist note the obvious: that a dead person can never defend himself and his reputation against a charge from many decades earlier.

Bizarre and mind-boggling claims of abuse are lodged against priests all the time, and even while there have been estimates that one half of accusations are "entirely false [or] greatly exaggerated," journalists continue to trumpet each and every claim handed to them without so much as a whimper of the usual journalistic skepticism.

Extremely rare is the brave journalist such as Vincent Carroll at the Denver Post, who fearlessly took on the dominant media narrative and declared:

"[F]raudulent or highly dubious accusations are more common than is acknowledged in coverage of the church scandals – although they should not be surprising, given the monumental settlements various dioceses have paid out over the years."

It is indisputable that no other organization in the entire world comes even close to implementing the measures that the Catholic Church has taken in order to ensure the protection of children. In the United States, the Catholic Church has:

instituted a "zero tolerance" policy in which any credibly accused priest is immediately removed from ministry and law enforcement is notified;

trained well over 5 million children in giving them the knowledge and skills to protect them from abuse;

trained well over 2 million adults, including 99 percent of all priests, in recognizing signs of abuse;

conducted well over 2 million background checks, including those in the intensified screening process for seminarians and aspiring priests;

installed "Victim Assistance Coordinators" in every diocese, "assuring victims that they will be heard";

Comments

How is SNAP anti catholic? SNAP's all catholic all the time. They are catholics working for your church. They control the victims' side of things for the corporate church.

You are the ones creating "anti catholic" it's your mantra. Nobody but catholics ever think about your church. Save when you pull boners on kids then it's society's job to check your s*%t. Catholic society first of all would want to fix this, you would think. Most humans don't eat their children or sacrifice them as an offering to demented priests. Most humans protect children from such things. Evidently not you. Why, that kind of sociopathy puts you in a smaller percentage of the human population than gay folks and even the 1%.

~~But the purpose of this site is to arm responsible journalists with the facts about sex abuse so as to improve their coverage and hopefully lower the incidence of sex abuse in our society.

The quote above can only be looked at in two ways. The media is at fault for the abuse children suffered at that hands of clergy, or you are asking the media to look the other way when it comes to reporting about abusive priests in a attempt not to inform the public of additional abusive priests.

I do agree however if someone is willing to print something bad they must be willing to print the good.

You did however leave out one thing else that you can do. If you don't like to read what is printed or watching something that is on television, put the paper down or change the channel.

From your first paragraph all the way to the last one. "The Catholic Church in the 21st century is the model in safeguarding youth.

I will assume you are not aware of the protection the archdiocese of Philadelphia has shown to a recent (last week) assault victim and her alleged attacker.

Thanks to TMR for continuing to consistently get the truth out on the facts of the Catholic Church 'minor abuse' statistics (actually 'minor' compared with most other institutions and hardly 'abuse' in perhaps 80% of the cases), their tremendous advances in correcting internal localized systems and processes that permitted transgressions and their precedent-setting retributive, monitoring and protective practices and programs to both enjoin justice and reduce (total elimination is impossible where men dwell) offenses; and the corrupt media's leftist political and ideological agenda, which currently uses (and abuses) the atheist, homosexual, feminist, reproductive 'rights' and entitlements/privelages 'strawman' agenda to anesthesize lazy, bigoted brains. Such simps.

The Church will be heralded (once this short-lived love affair with leftist ideology runs its viral course) as the one enlightened institution that led the way out of the darkness that is the current despicable culture that permits (and in many places, supports, encourages and/or compels) these crimes in every aspect of progressive society. As we know, this disgusting behavior has been accomodated and prevailed in most secularized institutions for generations. God permitted this human stain ('filth') in the Church so as to implore her to facilitate its expulsion from society.

Others are seeing both the dishonesty and bigotry in/of/by the main stream media (and their cronies in entertainment, e-media, non-profit orgs [ACORN=SNAP], 'village idiots/activists', etc.) and their not-so-hidden benefactors.

Great article. Simply irrefutable. As media outlets like the manifesto rag New York Times and the lap dog Washington Post have illustrated, professional journalism in the US is largely a thing of the past. There are some serious reporters out there, though, and these points will resonate with them in particular.

I have the feeling after reading this latest article it is TMR who is giving ideas to everyone else but their own catholic church on how to improve their image in the media. One must admit they have a problem before it can be fixed and even today the catholic church has failed to do so.

I will use the Archdiocese of Philadelphia as a prime example.

Lets start with compensation to the abused. At last check the AOP is almost now 400 million dollars in debt, but in September 2015 they are hoping for a visit by the Pope. Although the city will pick up part of the tab the AOP will be paying the major portion. It has been mentioned in the media that Mayor Nutter and the Govenor of Pennsylvania maybe scheduling a trip to the Vatican to work out those issues. But where is this new found wealth coming from while the abused have not been compensated ?

Zero Tolerance – We can ask the parishioners of Our Lady of Calvary church on how they feel about this after learning they were kept in the dark for almost one full year of a priest with accusations of child abuse left to remain in their midst, only to be removed from ministry after he resigned.

The training of adults and children regarding abuse – I will be fair and say there is always the chance of a bad apple getting through but most recently it seems that too has also failed. Within six months of time two coaches for the AOP have been arrested for abuse and a priest has been arrested for the same., and a child is facing charges of abuse. Only yesterday a Montgomery County judge has ordered Charles Meredith the now ex-tennis coach for the Country Day School of the Sacred Heart to face trial on two counts of corruption of a minor. Meredith is free on $50,000 bail and faces 5 years in prison. (They must have been absent the day of classes)

Background Checks – I will let the above paragraph speak for this.

Safeguarding Youth. – I am not sure if everyone is aware of the latest events that have unfolded with a archdiocese of Philadelphia high school with a student being accused of sexually abusing another student, let me be fair and say that NO CLERGY OR TEACHER WAS INVOLVED. However the biggest idiotic event took place when the AOP sent out e-mails notifying people and parents not only the name of the abused but also of the alleged attacker. They then tried to correct the problem by sending a second e-mail asking people if they did not open the first e-mail to delete it. O.K. that really worked.

The AOP is not the only trouble spot.

But giving ideas on how other people can fix your problem is not going to work.

I was raised by a great man and he always had these great sayings and I remember most of them today. The one I would like to share regarding the catholic church. "You can do many rights but you do that one wrong that is how people will remember you"

This issue always attracts the most vicious internet bullies such as Jim and Dennis. I feel empowered and joyful giving the Catholic Church money in Jim and Dennis' name, and praying for them in church. May they, and all innocent people involved have peace.

On the 12th at 943PM we get – yet again – JR’s unsupported assertions as how SNAP is a tool of the Church. Readers may do with it what they will.

Then this marvelously illogical bit: “Nobody but catholics ever think about your church”. But “Dennis” does, and in his own mind he is ‘self-excommunicated.(Or does JR agree that “Dennis”’s self-excommunication is only a creature of his mind?) And all of those media article writers – are they all Catholic? And D’Antonio and Sipe and so many of the others who have written books as well as articles?

And has “Catholic society” not done the work to “fix this”? Or is JR once again transmitting from a past that is now very different from the present? Or are the Jay statistics “lying” – and if so, does JR have fresh statistics that can back up that assertion?

The substantive connection between the consumption of human sacrifices and the Catholic Abuse Matter is a poser – as the Brits would say – that is open to anybody out there in the reading audience.

But on the basis of that conflation, JR is able to quickly don the Wig Of Diagnosis and declaim – yet again – about “sociopathy” (people who eat children as human sacrifices to ‘demented priests’, y’a see). Neat.

Then comes “Dennis” on the 12th at 954PM, who is now going to do some analysis. Oh goody. Let’s look in and see how it works.

The quote he provides from this TMR article “can only be looked at in two ways”, he declares. Either a) it’s the media’s fault for the abuse or b) TMR is “asking the media” not to report about abusive priests.

And what – pray – about a third perfectly logical possible ‘way’ to ‘look at’ this article: that the media is being asked to examine more carefully the claims and allegations in order to separate genuine allegations (and thus accurate reports of Catholic cleric abuse) from allegations that are otherwise-classifiable, and from that examination to thus draw conclusions as to the actual extent of genuine abuse by Catholic clerics … ?

So there is certainly more than just the “only two ways” to which “Dennis” seeks to manipulate our thoughts.

Thus then “Dennis” has gotten onto the wrong track as he then rumbles along about printing good if they are going to print bad. I would say that the core matter here is not one of balance, but of original and essential accuracy. The media has done no investigation into the hardly improbable and indeed too-highly probable existence of ‘otherwise classifiable’ allegations and on that basis has claimed an epidemic of Catholic clerical ‘abuse’ (however the term is defined along that spectrum). When, actually, it remains now a clear probability that a great many of the allegations are ‘otherwise classifiable’ (JR’s unsupported assertions to the contrary here notwithstanding).

Thus then too, “Dennis”’s essential un-seriousness (or the bankruptcy of his approach in the face of the actual problem) is revealed in the rather silly suggestion that if we don’t like what we are reading or viewing we can tune-out. This is a vital public matter, in all of the aspects that I have mentioned in comments on this site, and not only no Catholic but also no Citizen can afford to tune out if the Stampede does indeed involve (and there is far too high a probability that it does) a primary and fundamental ‘crisis’ due to the “collapse of public fact” and to the concomitant and enabling fact of the media’s failure to accurately report in the first place.

And lastly in this comment of his, we see how “Dennis” doth roll: if you can find just one news report – even if it isn’t quite relevant – then toss it up and claim that it can stand credibly against the cumulative and individual weight of the many points made in the article. Thus this bit about an email somehow sent out in a Catholic school containing a police report identifying a sexual-abuse allegant; the allegant is a female student and the alleged perpetrator is a male student.

This is a) not quite the issue of actual sexual abuse allegedly perpetrated by Catholic clerics that this site has been working-with and the Church has been working-on for quite some time now; and b) not quite a clear-cut example of anything just yet, since it isn’t clear i) whether this email was sent out accidentally or deliberately nor ii) is it explained why the email was superseded by a retractive email as soon as the first email was discovered (if the original email had been sent out deliberately, why recall it?) nor iii) what if anything any Catholic clerics or nuns had to do with it (it may have merely been a lay clerical error).

But anything to Keep The Ball Rolling, no?

Then – and nicely in time for Valentine’s Day – we get a typical JR valentine to “Dennis” at 1035AM on the 12th.

Then on the 12th at 319PM “Dennis” returns with more. Well, maybe better luck this time. Let’s see.

“Dennis” feels that “it is TMR”, actually, that is putting ideas into “everyone else” except the Church as to “how to improve their image in the media”.

Which nicely reveals what – for the Abuseniks – it’s really all about: image. Whereas as the article works-toward the point, and as I noted above in this comment, it is not an issue of “image” but rather of substance, i.e. the article deals with the media’s demonstrated substantial failure to perform its obligations to report accurately.

That the Catholic Church has “failed to do so” (i.e. to improve its image) is primarily due to the fact that the Church since Dallas has not been trying to improve its image so much as it has worked to substantially improve the quality of its child-protective environment. And in that substance the Church has clearly succeeded, and far more than any other organization on the planet, including – as the Wall Street Journal points out (my second-to-last comment on the immediately prior thread here) – the U.N. itself.

But now “Dennis” will give us an example. This is a good direction to take. Let’s see then how this works out.

He starts with “compensation to the abused” – thus already derailing his choo-choo before it is out of the station since in order to make this an effective point it first has to be established who is genuinely compensable and who it ‘otherwise classifiable’. But then he keeps driving the engine even though it has left the rails, by going on and on about the economic and fiscal aspects of the Pope’s possible up-coming visit to Philly. He tries to bring this soft-shoe home by plaintively asking how the AOP can be contemplating any outlays at all if “the abused have not been compensated”, which simply brings the whole thought back to square-one and a screeching halt.

Then on to “zero tolerance”. He raises an example (I am uncertain of the date) which can have several possible explanations (and I am not familiar with the actualities of the case, and if all “Dennis” has to go on are news-reports than he may well not be very familiar with all the actual aspects either). Perhaps he can give us the link to the news-report. At this point, we only have an incoherence: a priest who has resigned is not then consequently removed from ministry, because he did that himself when he resigned.

He then seems to confuse ‘zero tolerance’ in terms of prevention – which is a near-impossibility, as even he himself admits – with ‘zero tolerance’ in terms of dealing with an abusive priest once credible allegations have been brought. In which latter case, if the AOP was instrumental in the process that brought these persons before the justice system, then it has succeeded – so the Church in this scenario has succeeded.

I have no idea of the relevance of that bit about “they must have been absent the day of classes”.

I am not certain of the relevance of the “background checks” bit. Perhaps if “Dennis” were to explain his thinking here, or offer identifying information for his information-source, we might have better luck with this one.

Then he is back to the email-incident and we have dealt with that above in terms of its non-relevance to the Catholic Abuse Matter as this site has been dealing with it. He now admits that irrelevance, but seems to have now moved on to the larger or lesser issue (take your pick) of events happening in Catholic schools even though clergy were not involved. A clerical error might well be the cause; an actual policy requirement is far less easy to credit without further information or substantiation; an individual clerical worker’s deliberate act is possible but also would require further information or substantiation.

But to simply follow the sly “Dennis” gambit (i.e. toss up something without too much substantiation or discussion and hope people will draw their own negative conclusions by following the (dubious) path you have aimed them toward) and imagine the worst is precisely the type of ‘thinking’ (or lack of it) that is a prime driver of the Stampede and – it seems – the natural and most congenial level on which Abuseniks seem to like to operate.

Then we are ominously assured that “The AOP is not the only trouble spot”. No further explanation or explication, so it remains as simply what it grammatically is: merely an unsupported ominous assertion.

Then a pitch to sentimentality about what I presume is his dear old dad – and good for him. Apparently – and by the most amazingly convenient coincidence – the gentleman quite a while ago had some wisdom about the Catholic Church. How amazing.

But then the gentleman’s insight actually works to mitigate the Church’s current predicament: for all the good the Church has done, you can never go wrong by trying to Stampede folks into focusing on “that one wrong”. It has a sort of acute relevance here after all.

But – never one to stop pushing his engine further off the rails – “Dennis” brings it all home with a reminder that for him (and for Abuseniks and for the Stampede) it is not, nor has it ever been, fundamentally about substance, but rather about image (and appearance, and spin, and stories).

The simple fact that you only hear me and Dennis asking for reparations for victims everywhere, anywhere on this planet, should prove to you who SNAP really works for. Any victims group that has never demanded reparations for victims. Aint a victims' group that's working for victims. It's that simple kids.

Dennis and I are mocked sexually again. A compliment on good writing becomes "A Valentine"

Queers are so f'ing funny. I'm just one big joke to you. Dennis is heterosexual but let's mock man love it's always good for a big yuk. This is the out dated world you live in? You rape children and want a pass on that; but homos to you are still a big joke? Your new pope's pretending different. Glad to see you still keep the homo pyres burning in your old timey catholic ghetto.

You complain about; that it somehow matters; that you are disliked. That's all covered under freedom of thought; freedom of and from religion. They are thoughts. Just thoughts some may have. So What? Who cares who dislikes you? You committed criminal actions. Deeds. Deeds are either legal or illegal. Your corporate officers deeds were criminal and they harmed people. You don't like what someone thinks don't listen to them. But to physically; mentally; spiritually; and criminally harm people and to not be held responsible. That equates with bigotry to you?. Well if that's the p.r. line you've paid for. stick with it, I guess. I don't think it's being bought as the truth but by a very, very small circle.

You have to pretend your rape claims are all fake. Because if they aren't (and they aren't). You aren't standing on moral ground at all. THAT is why you attack all victims who post here. The lightbulb goes off,( I can be very dumb). That's why Sybaris and Scylla attack constantly and pretend that, Lordy! Lordy! We victims have come to destroy the church.

You were compensated, yet I see no evidence of your own healing. To the contrary: I see an all out demonic oppression, if not flat out possession in your postings. You have admitted to "night terrors" here before. Those did NOT come from anyone that may have abused you. Those can only come from one fallen angel, and those can only be healed by God Incarnate.

David, all this is old news, except the funny pictures. You need to dig deeper to find what's wrong with how the pedophile priest issue was covered, as in, who has been running the PR machine. News should be New, David, please dig deeper. Love always, kay

The sole focus of the critics of both TMR and the Church is always money, money, money- their god.

The frauds 'god' is all that matters to them- not protecting minors, not removing predators from society, not revealing the truth about the extent of this deviancy/perversion in all society; but, money.

No matter the topic, if it involves the Catholic Church, it always comes back to the money. Even when they've gotten their payout, it doesn't satisfy them, they want more. Theirs is a god of greed and gluttony.

And then, we're graced by the insightful and helpful 'teachings' by the ever-lecherous hanger-on-er 'feminist journalist' about how one is supposed to investigate and report this matter – why, according to the laws of the bigots themselves, of course! Drumming up e-business/traffic for her useless, dime-a-dozen Catholic-hating (and, not-so-demurely self-aggrandizing) blog here at TMR is so very, very 'PR', and, hopefully, financially productive for herself, yes? Because, you know, she is the expert on all matters "pedophile priest' and 'PR' and 'News', she's a regularly sought-after media expert on this (or any/every?) topic.

The main reason for the focus on the Church's relatively insignificant minor ephebophile problem is two-fold; first, it is nothing more than your run-of-the-mill antiCatholic bigotry, second it is to extort as much money as possible to punish the Church for the first reason. It has absolutely nothing to do with protecting children or minors and every honest observer of this hyper-politicized persecution knows it.

As a result of their ideologically-drive persecution, these frauds are responsible for more sexual abuse crimes being committed against children and minors than all the Catholic priests that ever existed [combined] because these leftist sheisters fomented the godless, immoral, unethical ideology that permitted, encouraged and supported/s pedophilia and ephebophilia in secular and other religious institutions, and then turned the peoples focus away from this fact (statistically verifiable) and refocused it towards the Catholic Church.

Too bad the poor kids being victimized since 2002 have been lost in your hustle-shuffle against the Church.

I wonder what this new generation of [real] victims articles, blogs and books will say – who will they blame (or sue)?

Rather than sit on your claimed dirty little secrets for 30-50 years, you should have reported any crime against you at the time it was committed, which would have prevented more crimes against other minors. But, that would not have led to such a rich pay out day – right?

You are possibly complicit in any such crimes committed against every minor that had been abused after your claimed abuse.

It gets a little complicated keeping up with comments because they don’t always seem to go up in chronological order; it doesn’t help when commenters don’t identify the comment(s) to which they are referring.

On the 12th at 1032PM JR starts in on some “you” (otherwise unidentified). I don’t know if it is intended to address me, but then I don’t see where it is intended for any commenter here since this “you” appears – in JR’s vision – to have “committed criminal actions”. Inexactness – of terms or analysis or even fact – seems not to be a difficulty that gives Abuseniks pause. But then the Playbook isn’t going for factuality; it is going for the manipulation of emotions and of imagination, and in the pursuit of that objective, exactness of thought and expression is most likely a definite obstruction.

The assertions about “criminality”, as about the actuality of the various asserted “rapes”, are precisely the point where everything has to be stopped until those assertions are established, because without this vital step being successfully effected, then nothing else can be further built-up. But the Playbook precisely and specifically has to move everybody over this assessment-phase without permitting any assessment at all. And that’s how the Stampede got rolling.

This “your” continues to be addressed a few minutes later in the comment of the 12th at 1046PM. Speaking for myself, I have never claimed that the “rape claims are all fake”. I’m still trying to establish which allegations (for “rape” or anything less) were genuine and which were otherwise-classifiable. Or, at least, to work out some general principle by which we might at least be able to establish such a distinction. Nor have we had any constructive input from Abuseniks in this project. So I am still working on some assessment that does not involve any “all” either way, but rather seeks to get an accurate picture of the actuality here.

“Sybaris and Scylla”? At first glance one recalls that “Scylla” is usually partnered with “Charybdis” and not with “Sybaris”. But here we suddenly see the provenance – in JR’s mind – of those odd bits about ‘sacrificing to demented priests’: he has somehow come upon the Greek myth of “Sybaris” the Greek (female) dragon to whom young men needed to be sacrificed. Although there were no “demented priests” (the sacrifice was bespoken by the Oracle of Delphi, a female), there was a guy-hero who had fallen in love with the designated sacrifice-ee and saved him, killing the dragon in the process. Just how all of this might work in JR’s mind and vision is for any reader so inclined to consider. And how “Scylla” figures in here is also anybody’s guess. The prospect of Abuseniks delving into the realm of mythology is doubly formidable in its phantasmagoric possibilities, so let the reader beware.

Then on the 13th at 101AM JR, bedecked in the combined Wigs of Morality and Therapy, informs us that while the victims apparently won’t be “healed through compensation” (which presumes allegants were seeking ‘healing’ in the first place) yet “you and your church” apparently will be because that’s what will happen when you are “doing the right thing”. Once again, we see the Abusenik ploy of trying to start the play at first base, without the batter ever having actually hit the ball: by which I mean that the Abuseniks want everybody to just agree to ‘believe’ that all the allegated claims and stories were true, and then the Game can begin from there. But as I have always said, that’s not how it works.

And we are then informed (the 13th, 1226AM) that JR and “Dennis” are and apparently always have been “asking for reparations for victims everywhere, anywhere on this planet”. Really? Readers are welcome to go back over the record here and see if they can find a sustained interest in any “rapes” (let alone any larger and less specific ‘victimization’) beyond the Catholic Abuse Matter.

But then, marvelously, he has also revealed more than he intended here. I recall reading that SNAP has recently indeed declared its brief to be anybody anywhere who has been victimized by anyone “in authority”. So here we have JR and “Dennis” now claiming to have been doing what SNAP has also been doing. An odd coincidence indeed.

But SNAP no doubt saw (or was advised by its tortie string-pullers) that the cash-bearing lode of the American Catholic Abuse Matter has pretty much been played-out and there’s too much risk, now, for torties to have the easy pickings they had back in the day. So in order to Keep The Ball Rolling, SNAP figured it had to widen its portfolio of prospective ‘victims’ – which it certainly has, making itself now (in its own mind, at least) the planet’s go-to site for anybody anywhere who has ever been ‘victimized’ by anybody” in authority”.

And it would seem that JR and “Dennis” are also signing themselves onto that bandwagon too (although they will actually be running their own band-wagon, since SNAP – but of course – is merely a tool of the Church, rather than a tool of the torties). Well, that’s very nice. As the late great Margaret Rutherford, in her take on the role of Miss Marple, once politely and consolingly said to a rather unwell interlocutor at the breakfast table who had just excitedly shared his most recent fever-vision: “It must sustain you”. Just so – this most recent (SNAP-derived?) vision and gambit must surely “sustain” JR and “Dennis”, and let it be so.

But what does this “prove” about who SNAP is working-for? That SNAP is and always has been working-for the torties? Given everything we have read and seen and discussed on this site, balanced against JR’s mere assertions and insistent repetitions of his own fever-vision, I would say that SNAP has been told by the torties that since it won’t likely be bringing in many more paying customers for the torties, then the deal’s off. And SNAP has to go find fresh fields of endeavor.

And since I don’t recall either JR or “Dennis” saying that they had pooled their variously-gotten resources to set up any such “victims’ group that’s working for victims” then I don’t see exactly how these two paragons are doing much for the victim-y cause. But no doubt the vision of their morally grand vision must indeed sustain them. And how nice for them.

And let us then leave them to it now, JR having put the final nail into the matter by going-out on that ironic exit-line: “It’s that simple, kids” [grammatical correction supplied].

Lastly, on the 13th at 421AM, ‘Kay Ebeling’ throws one in from the far outfield: “And where does SNAP fit into that PR machinery?” [grammatical correction supplied]. That had been discussed in prior comments on this site, along with the material from D’Antonio’s book (but all this took place, perhaps, during that eclipsical hiatus when ‘Kay’ didn’t know the TMR site was still carrying-on; or she just doesn’t read things and so comes to the discussion several sandwiches short of the full picnic basket).

Short-answer: The torties, prohibited by law and professional regulation from going out and drumming-up and ‘grooming’ their own clients, needed a front organization that would appear to be a grass-roots victim-advocacy organization but that would work with the torties by serving as an entry-point for collecting potential litigant-clients and aiming them toward the law offices, once SNAP had suitably fortified these prospective allegants with whatever misch of psychological, theological, legal and spiritual or religious bits had been concocted into the heady come-on-down brew. Having served the prospects such a Kool-Aid, SNAP could expect to be remunerated by the torties with a cut of the subsequent attorney fees, masquerading as ‘donations’ made out of the heart-warmed concern of the torties for any victims of Catholic clerical abuse anywhere and so on and so forth. Well, actually, only in localities within the sovereign justicial reach of the United States and its various civil court systems. Thus SNAP has not ever really been in the victim-recovery business (it expends peanuts on therapeutic treatment for anyone), but instead SNAP’s ruling staff has been dining-out on the monies provided by the various torties. SNAP had been a cipher until, one fine day a quarter-century or so ago, Jeff Anderson bumped into Barbara Blaine and they had a long long talk and suddenly her little group became the SNAP that we know today.

And while we have Ms. Ebeling on the line: her effort to link us to the Economus material (which is inaccessible on the Vatican-and-Satan website where it is claimed to be archived) didn’t seem to work. Is there some simple and direct URL she could provide that leads directly to the material itself?

Considering Publion's logical analyses of the SNAP-Torties link (which is pretty much confirmed), it really is shameful that there appears to be no real victims advocacy group, one that isn't driven by revenge, bigotry or greed, that real victims can rely on for moral support, if nothing else.

And here, TMR is constantly buzzed by so-called activist and advocate busy-bees that instead of resolving their hatred of everything Catholic Church, putting their biases aside for the benefit of others, they make the conditions even worse for actual victims that should really receive some justice (which can range from at least formal acknowledgement of their victimization, to apology, to any of the social support services required, to prosecution of the perpetrator, to compensation for damages).

The inordinate focus of the bigots on the money and the theology, the philosophy and the distortion of Church history (yada, yada, yada…) serves only to undermine any progress or recognition of justice for real victims. If you act as a hate-filled, greedy and vengeful bigot, that behavior won't be lost on any observers – it is how you will be received, and treated.

It is the fault of all the cottage-industry frauds- from SNAP, to B-A Org, to CoA, to every slimey tort attorney involved, to the hordes of Danny Gallagher 'victims', to the Seth Williams' and Sarmina's, to every other exploitive segment of the population that is simply looking for either a free ride on Church payouts or still carrying their hate-torch for the Church, but, it really untimately rests on the stooped and sloped shoulders of a lazy, complacent and complicit media – who know better, that any remaining real vicitms that are not receiving justice.

One only need revisit Suggestion 5 (add paid out $3B to date) of the subject TMR article to see all that the Church has done to rectify wrongs. It is inane (and insane) to keep repeating untruthful mantras that deny facts, but, it is also extremely detrimental to those true victims still awaiting their justice.

Greed/avarice, licentiouness- they never lead to anything good. Too bad it's the innocents, including wrongly accused priests, that will suffer the most from the sins of these destructive posers.

I must refer to P's statement about the "Vatican and Satan"web site. I have noticed that satanism and ritual abuse have been set up as a "logical" counter point to SNAP for victims. Victims either go along with the lie that SNAP cares about victims or if they/we don't like SNAP they / we can hit the wall that links satanism to the vatican. Cloud cukoo land (I personally believe in satan just as much as I believe in god. Not at all. They are both, flip sides of the same coin.).

So it's either SNAP's way or the highway to Hell. Those are the two poles set for victims in this polemic. That's all that's presented for victims to see. Nothing else. Nothing normal like the Birmingham boys (the victims of fr. Birmingham) created.You know individuals coming together to see what they can do together.

No just SNAP or SATAN. And you wonder how we know how the church has rigged this?

Lets set the record straight. If I was homosexual I would be proud to have Mr. Robertson as a significant other or whatever the politically correct term is being used today.

If Jim wants me to be his "valentine" so be it. I don't think that would ever happen though since Jim maybe sharing his life with someone he cares about, if he is not, this MAN has daughters and grandchildren I am sure everyday they are his Valentine.

Now Jim under no circumstance needs me to defend him, but the individual who made the cheap shot has done so because Jim lives his life in a way that makes him happy. The shot only shows again how the catholic church teaches hatred.

In conclusion here is the big eye opener. We have read time after time the reason for the clergy sexual abuse. It was homosexual priests. Why then has your own church protected at every turn these homosexual priests ? Can it be your pope, cardinals, archbishops and bishops all be homosexuals ? Would someones proper title be more like Archbishop Nancy Chaput or Pope Nancy.

Take this comment the way you wish, but the Archie Bunker mentality died decades ago.

Jim, I just had a very bad thought. Can you imagine if the catholic church, the Publion's and the Delphin's and the Julie's have anything to do with the NFL. There goes another institution down the tubes.

I don't agree with most of it but how does that equate to hating it? That's the problem with the religious: you either agree with them completely or you're completely wrong. No half measures.No medium; all extreme.

How does my being "wrong" by not believing in your faith equate to "hating" your faith?

It doesn't.

You have made up me, "hating" your religion. You invented my "hatred". I don't hate catholicism. I'm related to two saints. on both sides of my protestant and catholic famlies. (St Columba or Columkill on my father's side. And the saint who brought the Vulgate bible to Ireland. (forgot his name).

You constantly must say your religion is "hated" by me; in order for you to cast yourselves as "the Victim". If your religion is not hated by me then you can not be the "Victim". You just get to be the "Oppressor" you really are.

When, really, it's your NOT being true to the tenents of your religion that's the problem for me. If you "Loved your neighbor as yourself" If you loved your own catholic children as you love yourself you'd never be hearing from me. but you don't. (Contrary to the Narcissisum you constantly show here. I don't think you love yourself very much at all) That's why I'm here. Like John the baptist crying out in the wilderness, reminding you of what you've allowed to happen to us; and how you refuse to heal it.

KenW above thinks, money magically cures victims; and that I'm an example of how that doesn't work. So according to KenW's logic. Going by me, no victims should get any money?.

Money is compensation for damage done. It's not for healing that damage. It's for the fact that damage was created in the first place. And is KenW a psychiatrist? His prejudices ever enflamed by the loving Delphin and the "down to earth" P, Makes him capable of judging my "damages"? I don't think so.

The Ebeling comment of the 13th at 342AM is revelatory, but with that weird undertow of Abusenik thinking.She ho-hyums that everything TMR has put up in this article is “old news” – really? You wouldn’t know it by reading Abusenik commentary or media commentary on its own ‘reporting’. Has she the URL to any work along these lines that she had ‘reported’ on prior to this?

But then the next bit: she urges “David” to “dig deeper”, where – she appears to know – he will “find what’s wrong with how the pedophile priest issues was covered” and – more specifically – “who has been running the PR machine”.

First of all, “David” has just put up a heck of a lot more material at one time and in a clear and relevant format than Ms. Ebeling has ever put up here.

Second of all, if this self-declared media-type or reporter or media presence or whatever actually has the knowledge she infers to “David”, then why did she not put it up here – even in this comment of hers? Instead, in that queasily ominous and vague but insubstantial Abusenik way, she implies and infers but actually offers no thoughts, no information, no evidence. And yet she tells “David” here that he has essentially accomplished nothing, because he hasn’t investigated the real area of interest, and yet she offers us absolutely nothing about any knowledge she clearly infers she has that might be found in the direction in which she is so theatrically pointing.

This Abusenik game is part shell-game and part-Wig game, but – as with any used-car salestypes – nothing happens if you step inside and turn the key in the ignition. You were, of course, simply supposed to listen to the stories about the car and then head right to the office to sign a check. Who ever thought you would be so ‘un-empathic’ or ‘sociopathic’ as to get inside and try to turn the motor on? … That sort of thing.

Then on the 13th at 1254PM JR offers his opinion (since it is unsupported by any thinking or evidence, ‘opinion’ it remains) as to what “perversion” is. Since he has opened up the floor, I will offer my definition: persons who distort or fabricate actuality and present it as truth and then swear oaths under pains and penalties of perjury to obtain monies for that fabrication or distortion. Not that I have ever said that there is “perversion” on this site, but since JR opened the floor …

But then we get a comment from “Dennis” (the 13th at 345PM) that even in its format at first glance seems rather ‘serious’ and able to sustain a restrained tone (no screamy formatting or exclamation points). This might prove interesting.

He is going to “set the record straight” – and here we go again. And who cares whether either of them is or isn’t “homosexual”. If I haven’t made myself clear here I will: homosexuality is not any issue of interest to me in the commenting on this site; what is interesting is the disconnect between persons claiming maturity and the adolescent and queasy gender-bending jokes and stylistic tics that are indications not of a sexual orientation but of a) an unripeness in maturity and b) a certain undertow in the character; and it is such elements as these that there is relevance for what I am concerned with – because if these self-proclaimed ‘victims’ are maturity-and-character-challenged, then the entire Prime Presumption of the Stampede (i.e. that ‘victims’ are ever mature and reliable and their story can be trusted without further concern or examination) is undermined and things have to start not on first-base, but with the batter facing a pitcher back at home plate.

Then the usual bits around the matter of how JR is going to be titled today: ‘Jim’, ‘James’, ‘Jamie’, ‘James C. Robertson’, ‘Mr. James C. Robertson’, ‘Jimmy’ … whatever.

Then there’s this scream-y formatted “MAN” and clearly I was too optimistic about the performance “Dennis” was going to turn in here. (Doth he protest too much, d’ye think?)

Then I am referred to as “the individual who made the cheap shot” (which indicates just how reliable any declaration of “Dennis” actually is – he does read my material).

In what way “the catholic church teaches hatred” is an assertion left undefined and unsupported just the same way “rape” is an assertion left undefined and unsupported. But it’s vivid and might coddle a needy mind here and there.

But now but now but now … “In conclusion, here is the big eye opener”. And be assured my eyes indeed are open – I make it a point to do so when reading.

The “eye opener” is that “we read time after time the reason for clergy sexual abuse …. It was homosexual priests”. I could certainly see asserting that validly as a partial description of the causes for the Catholic Abuse Matter (to the extent that it has something to do with the priests themselves and not with the Anderson Strategies creating a Stampede), but the second Jay Report went into a much larger menu of possible causes. So if “Dennis” is under the impression that by reading what he has wanted to read he has somehow read everything that is out there to be read … then he is deeply misinformed (and under-informed).

But his ‘conclusion’ – from which term it is not to be presumed that I consider it logical – is actually a suspicion tossed out onto the waves (which is his favorite gambit when tossing his plop): are all the clergy and hierarchy homosexuals? And then a childish wrap with the “Pope Nancy” bit.

Then, as an after-bit, he tosses in the “Archie Bunker mentality” – although a) just what that mentality might be and ii) how it applies here is – as it always is with “Dennis” – left unexplained.

Still, I thought, it’s a comment above the level of his usual since at least we don’t get that queasy, teeny, catty, chatty stuff with which “Dennis” usually wraps up his comments in order to give himself what apparently to him is a zingy exit-line.

But then but then but then.

On the 13th at 441PM he seems to have to come back like a dog to its spew in order to make the “Archie Bunker” point again, although he hasn’t done anything, to explain it here either. He’s not a thinker; just a plop-tosser, but apparently some bits of plop are so fulfilling to toss that he has to do it a couple of times.

But then but then but then.

On the 13th at 703PM, he gives us a lead-in one might have expected from siome frontier-housewife on the prairie looking at the muffins just out of the oven: “Oh, Dear Lord in Heaven”. (And do you notice that for this show “Dear Lord” and “Heaven” are respectfully capitalized?)

And then – waitttttttttt forrrrrrrrrrrrr ittttttttttttttttt – we are after all treated to one of those catty chatty just entre-nous bits that would better be put in a private email except that it is intended to be a show for our benefit. And he comes up with – waittttt forrrrr itttttt – an “NFL” reference. Which is what manly-men do, don’t they?

Dennis believes in god therefore he capitalizes god's many names. Do you pay attention to anything other than to imaginary sky denizens? Dennis has said he's a person of faith again and again and so have I.

Delphin, dares to say "greed and avarice never lead to anything good". Defining insanely the compensating of your raped victims with "greed and avarice" How do those two things equate anywhere in reality?

Yet at the same time Delphin consistantly attacks the left in support of right wing, ayn rand greed. Rand's the one who said "Selfishness was a virtue" and Rand was an atheist.

Clohessy gets to attack and lie about the Catholic Church via a lot of media venues that don't question him, hurting a lot of people and trying to destroy the church, while getting to present himself as a "victim." It's a sociopath's dream.

Clohessy is the catholic church. He's paid for and was created as an counterintelligence agent of the catholic church. His brother was a catholic priest victim and also, horrificly, a perpetrator.

Barbra Blaine's mother was one of the biggest conservative catholics in all of Chicago, she headed catholic group after catholic groupt here. Barbra's degrees came from catholic universities and so did Clohessy's degree.

The other, so called founder of SNAP, Mary Grant. Has no degrees from anywhere she never even went to high school. And you pretend that SNAP's not the catholic church. THEY NEVER DEMAND REPARATIONS FOR VICTIMS. Get it? They are the church.

On the 14th at 1043AM we are treated to more personal information from JR and readers can credit it as they will. Although the bit about “all of humanity’s my Valentine” is just so precious that it deserves special mention.

In regard to the rest of the comment – responding by name to various commenters – I will refrain from putting up any thoughts of mine.

But in regard to the concluding paragraph’s statement that “Money is compensation for damage done”, I heartily agree. However that presumes – how can it not? – that there is demonstrable evidence that a) damage has been done b) clearly and demonstrably by the act claimed in the allegation (and not, thus – to repeat yet again – damage that pre-existed the alleged act). And we are right back to square-one. As usual.

Also, JR asks if ‘Ken W’ is “a psychiatrist”, and yet has himself been tossing around the clinical descriptor “sociopath” as if it were confetti.

Then at 1117AM JR doth declaim and insist that “only a fool could think that by pooling my and Dennis’s resources we could create a victims’ group that we liked”.

That “that we liked” is a new bit. I suppose that with that proviso, one could go on until the Last Trumpet claiming that one has not encountered a victims’ group that one “liked”. Neat.

Also that “2 people can not create a victims group”. I don’t know about that: Blaine was sitting on top of SNAP and going nowhere and then she and Jeff Anderson had that talk and … the rest is history.

But then JR says “Particulallarly when we know so few victims” [sic]. And that’s interesting. JR has been going on quite a while about victims, and has even admitted on this site that he doesn’t know what they want, and yet now says he doth “know so few victims”. But then how does he “know” they are all so marvelously credible? How then does he “know” that so many allegations are brave, courageous and true? And “knows” it so utterly surely that he can insist that people who question that possibility are so very wide of the mark in this matter?

And it’s been quite a few years since JR took this project (or – at least – complaining about the lack of it) for his own and in all that time JR has accomplished nothing? Surely he has a hefty starting-point in the 500-plus other allegants in his own lawsuit. Couldn’t he start his project there? Or simply put up a website of his own and advertise for prospective members? This is the era of the Web, after all.

And he comes up with an excuse for none of that happening: it’s all SNAP’s fault. (One recalls that marvelous excuse of Mussolini’s in 1943 when the Fascist Grand Council had canned him: “I tedeschi sono responsabile per tutto” – the Germans are responsible for the whole thing. SNAP has somehow prevented him from knowing who any of the other victims are. (Did he not claim to have worked closely with SNAP for a while? He didn’t meet anybody?) Have no ‘victims’ sought to contact him since then? It’s altogether odd.

But then he moves right along to change the subject: “where are the hordes of fake victims you claim?”. Well, where are the hordes of real victims he claims? And the burden of proof is somewhat on the proponent of the theory here, especially since we have discussed at great length the many elements that cumulatively suggest the strong possibility that there are more than a few. Surely he cannot claim that there are almost no false-claims among the 12,000 or so – since he has already admitted he doesn’t know many victims at all in the first place.

Does anybody here but JR see this invisible genuine-victim horde? And can they demonstrate its genuine-ness?

Then an inventive but hardly relevant bit about three billion (hadn’t “Dennis” wound up with numbers closer to six?) working out to be a mere three dollars a head for the world’s Catholics. The problem at this point in this discussion is not about the amount so much as it is about the legitimacy of any monies being paid out at all on the basis of the undemonstrated allegations and stories and claims. But it sounds to me like an echo of something any tortie staffer would have reinforced: even if you have any doubts or qualms about signing-on to this lawsuit because of the odd-bits in your sworn story, don’t forget that it’s not like the Catholic Church can’t afford it.

And perhaps we see once again how much ‘about the money’ it was and always has been.

Then at 1147AM JR simply “must” address my statement about the “’Vatican and Satan’ website”. (Readers may recall that JR had mentioned this website as the archival repository of the Economus evidence to the effect that the Church had set up SNAP in some way; the site mentions the Vatican and Satan in its top banner on its homepage.)

But I have no idea what he means when he says that he has “noticed that Satanism and ritual abuse have been set up as a ‘logical’ counterpoint to SNAP for victims”. And his further comment to the effect that victims may either “go along with the lie that SNAP cares about victims” or else those victims (genuine or otherwise classifiable) “can hit the wall that links satanism to the Vatican”. What does that mean? That victims either go to SNAP or have to embrace Satanism (and the Vatican)? I can’t follow the thought process here at all, nor can I imagine how this sort of dynamic would operate. Other readers may see something here that I am missing.

But it gives him a chance to toss the classical reference from Aristophanes to “Cloud Cuckoo Land” [correction supplied]. And he riffs rather incomprehensibly on that.

He may possibly have some accurate point about the fact that “victims” have no alternative to SNAP, but even if so (and it’s not clearly established that he does), that does nothing to establish that the Church runs SNAP, rather than the torties who engaged the services of the SNAP leadership to groom and funnel prospective allegants. And it seems a stretch to imagine that in all these years and with all these putative victims (and is JR the only one who ‘knows’ that SNAP is a tool of the Church?) there has not been any movement whatsoever to form an alternative group to SNAP for themselves and for the putative myriads of still-undeclared victims that are still out there. (And I seem to recall some months ago that another group had indeed been set-up, discussed on this site if I recall correctly.)

And clearly at least one group – limited to those making allegations against a specific priest – has indeed come together or did for a while. Did that not give anybody else among the horde similar ideas and motivation?

And in response to his final question in this comment: Yes, I do “wonder how the church has rigged this”. Nor has JR given any explanation as to how the Church might have accomplished this. (Once again, as I have been saying about standard Abusenik Playbook praxis, we get an innuendo with nothing to support it at all.)

At 1152AM this manly-man refers to me yet again as “Princess” – and let it stay right up there where it was put. The Rapunzel reference however does nothing for the train of thought here except to distract by epithet. As so often.

And as I said: it’s not what “Dennis” chooses to call JR; it’s the fact that there is a disconnect between a) the self-presentation of two commenters and b) the self-revelation of two commenters. And if there is a disconnect in this rather techy area, then are we to presume without question that other assertions and claims suffer from no such other disconnects and must be fully credited as accurate and true? But JR is almost correct: in terms of their personal lives or relationship, it’s their own business and I don’t care.

I do agree I wasn't clear about the choices victims have regarding SNAP or Satanism.

What I should have said is: The only alternatives, aside from doing nothing, is either agreeing with SNAP's stupid behavior or talking about "ritual abuse" that reeks of brimstone. Either polemic is absurd.

Normal dissenters come together because they hold thoughts in common and democratically proceed together. SNAP's NEVER done that. Why?

If victims who have been raped without playing dress up can't meet each other thanks to SNAP. and that's the majority of your victims. What miniscule percentille of victims were ritually raped? Yet they are having conference after conference all over America? While victims who weren't ritually raped only have SNAP where they meet hardly any victims only "supporters".

And does it really matter what or to who mumbo jumbo was muttered? Or is it that the rape should be the only point of major concern. Mumbling incantations wether to god or the devil means nothing; because neither is a crime. Rape however is a crime.

In all I've met no more than 25 to 35 victims. that's in all the work I've done here in L.A. with SNAP and at two SNAP conferences. Not all victims are activist in nature.

Funny though regarding the victims group that was self started, called the Birmingham Boys. They never used SNAP, and they got much farther connecting with other Birmingham victim's and getting publicity so more victims might come forword than anything SNAP's ever done.And they did it collectively.

SNAP's standing as a victims group was created through Phil Donahue; and Oprah Winfrey, both then in Chicago, as was SNAP. Victims called SNAP, SNAP was all they saw and were never connected up. Unless you could sue. Then still very few met up. SNAP could have created a public demonstrating group of victims who didn't mind going public yet still have connected the others who didn't want to be seen publicly. They did not.

SNAP's just having a celebratory conference, 25th anniversary, where again not one victim other than Blaine and Clohessy is on the speakers list. Come on now! Even you should be able to smell the smelt in that.

I still know so little about the web and computers. If there was a way to reach victims, i'd love to know how. The overall number of victims I met regularly here in L.A. was 15. Of those most were not activist in any real sense. Kay was and she believes in devils and angels. She does however know what SNAP really is. On that she and I agree.

How 'unusual' that the one thing that unites the resident atheist and the resident 'non-denominational reformed Christian self-excommunicated Catholic' believer is their well-documented hatred for Catholicism.

What strange bedfellows (sexuality aside) does bigotry make!

Other than that, same old mumbo-jumbo. Just keep 'talking', boys – you are your own worst enemy when it comes to revealing your be-devilled intentions, dishonesty and incredible irrationality…just keep chewing your own tails off (got your 'Elizabethan collars' handy?).

I don't know if you comprehend what you read but I at no, zilch, zero time have I ever disrespected the faith of Catholicism. Have I spoke negative about the catholic church. Now that is something you can take to the bank.

I left the church not only because the abuse I suffered at the hands of someone who I was suppose to be able to trust. I left because I also did not believe in its teachings., and like some catholics who will sit in a pew once a week and then go out and do everything the faith teaches you are not to do is being a hypocrit.

I do belong to a non-denominational church like so many other ex-catholics belong to, but rest assured we do not sit around and speak hatred of Catholicism. There is a sense of belonging your church could never offer. That is not the fault of Catholicism that is the fault of the catholic church.

There are alot of things my faith now (Christianity) offers as did Catholicism. I receive communion, I was baptized again, like my daughter will be when she turns twelve.

So, if it helps you get threw the day by calling me and others Catholicism haters, bigots or whatever else floats your boat, go for it.

Now here is a shocking tid-bit you may not know. There is an individual who has a blog similar to TMR you may know. During the Engelhardt and Shero trial he was a major voice. Can you guess what he did ? Left the catholic church for a non-denominational one.

One of the biggest defenders for your abusive priests. Will you call him a Catholicism hater ?

Who is this individual? Now you say he was a major voice and a defender of abusive priests? We know it is a blog that the individual has online, could it not be that person's personal opinion they are sharing and not your opinion that this individual is the "biggest defender for abusive priests?" Just because you write a comment does not mean that it enables you to pass judgement on others. hasn't your new church taught you anything?

What documentation of our "hate"??? Whip it out sweetie. Put up or shut up.

I personally don't believe in god, everyone here knows that. How that equates to my hating catholicism is absurd. i think it's all a bit silly but hate it? I don't even think about it anymore.

Dennis has never said word one about your faith. He like i, wonder how you can consider yourself a follower of christ with the behavior you display here; but that doesn't equal hatred of the catholic faith. Pretending it does makes you a liar. Again.

I don't capitalize, jesus or christ or god or catholic because I don't. i refuse to give any religion special defference.

Delphin, You are right. We are subject to a lot of mental distress from anti-Catholic bigots, including the two main "victims" posting on here. I question their motives entirely. I myself have been a victim, and I was a major victim, but would never dream of getting on the internet and harrassing anyone involved, either directly or indirectly by way of association. Never.

Julie- you've remained a normal, heathy person (not a hate-consumed bigot), in spite of your victim experience- which is why you find the behavior of these victim-wannabe's here so offensive, and why they seem to reserve some of their worst venom for you.

You apparently didn't sign up for the 'professional victim' talking points and membership card that the other card-carrying members here renew annually-

I haven't seen any Catholic Church statement disparaging homosexual football players, please provide a link or reference.

I haven't seen any statement on/by TMR disparaging homosexual football players, please provide a link or reference.

For actions against Christians (many Catholic and Orthodox), please see any reliable media outlet (generally, anything that isn't CBS, NBC, ABC, NYT, WaPo and any other ideological leftist rag) for the persecution, including mass murder (holocaust), of Christians worldwide (Ref. provided upon request).

The irony of victim-claimants and antiCatholic bigots finding anything questionable is beyond laughable. Are we allowed to question now? All of us, or just them?

I have an idea- why not just believe everything you're told (your words of wisdom to us?), so long as it conforms to your ideological view, don't question anything – you'll be just fine.

I must note the added bonus of the wise ones not discerning satire as being the most interesting revelation given their propensity to demand that all hearers believe – on face value, everything a claimed victim of abusive Catholic priests says. Yeah, sure.

In regard to JR’s of the 15th at 1119AM, I would need to see some sort of a) evidence or at least b) coherent rationale that would credibly explain how Clohessy (or SNAP) could be a tool of the Church, given everything we do know about him and SNAP and the past several decades.

The religious affiliation of his relatives or Blaine’s relatives is hardly sufficient, and that affiliation is itself a tenuous connector at best. Ditto where they got their education: not everyone who graduates from a Catholic school at any level is automatically a lifelong and zealous Catholic.

Lastly – for this comment – there is a serious gap between i) the fact that SNAP does not demand reparations and ii) the conclusion that therefore SNAP and its main staff are tools of the Church. It can just as easily be true – and congruent with a far more comprehensive explanatory hypothesis – that the torties (and perhaps the allegants themselves) were never interested in anything but the payout check and therefore SNAP – reflecting the interests and objectives and purposes of one or both of those groups – has not demanded anything else, once the checks were cashed (and SNAP got a ‘donation’ or ‘contribution’).

However it is even more complicated to try to claim credibly that SNAP doesn’t “demand reparations for victims” in light of the fact that all of the formal allegants were given their check. Once again, JR has painted himself into a conceptual corner here: the “victims” he winds-up with in his version here turn out to be not the formal allegants (who indeed were given their check) but that utterly unproven, hypothesized (not to say ‘imagined’) myriad of still-undeclared ‘victims’ who remain ‘somewhere out there’.

And this phantasmagoric group is made to do double-duty in JR’s fundamentally iffy scenario or schematic: they are supposed to serve to a) (somehow) demonstrate that SNAP is a tool of the Church and b) create the always-necessary ‘victims’ that are so essential to Keep The Ball Rolling (i.e. we can’t stop now because there are (fill in the blank) more out there somewhere). And yet there is no evidence whatsoever that they even exist in any large numbers.

What JR needs to ‘get’ is how to logically develop a thesis or – in detective/lawyer-speak – a theory of the case. Simply going around and repeating the name of the individual (or in this case, organization – i.e. the Church) that he has decided (for whatever reasons of his own) must be guilty is no way to build or prove a case.

At 1207PM on the 15th he works to further elucidate his comment about victim “choices” in regard to SNAP and Satanism. Fair enough.

He theorizes that victims (we’ll leave aside the matter of genuine or otherwise for purposes of this discussion) have no alternatives except to go i) along with SNAP’s “behavior” (I presume it is “stupid” because SNAP doesn’t’ demand reparations) or ii) frame everything in terms of “’ritual abuse’ that reeks of brimstone”. I don’t quite understand (ii): victims must either go along with SNAP’s programs (which is to hook them up with torties, is it not?) or else talk about “’ritual abuse that reeks of brimstone” – but why is (ii) an option or the only other option?

And do most of SNAP’s attendees not hook-up with torties? (That would actually be something interesting to know: how many or what percentage of SNAP’s victim-attendees signed-up with torties and how many or what percentage did not?)

And if there are any significant number that did not sign-up with a tortie, then what prevented (and still prevents?) them from seeking help elsewhere or starting-up another victim-group?

JR’s theory seeks to deal with this problem by stating that “normal dissenters come together because they hold thoughts in common and democratically proceed together”. Assuming that his theory of how groups coalesce is accurate and sufficient, then why have these non-sign-up persons – who must clearly realize that their therapeutic needs are not being met – not come up with an alternative group?

Or is JR proposing that the hypothesized myriad of un-reported victims somewhere out there have avoided SNAP but don’t have any other alternatives or can’t come up with any alternatives? Groups – I would say – coalesce not only around issues but around somebody who magnetizes them and draws them toward him/herself like a magnet draws in loose iron filings. Why then has nobody like that arisen?

And given the fact that the Web is here, then unless one wants to further claim that the Church controls the Web, there’s no reason why some such group and ‘magnet’ should not have appeared at some point in these past decades.

SNAP has “never done that” and “Why?” … I would suggest that it is because SNAP has not wanted to nurture a rival to itself and lose ‘market share’, so to speak.

But this is hardly evidence that SNAP is a tool of the Church. This is pure organizational-dynamics or ‘business’ praxis, and could just as easily be because i) SNAP doesn’t want to lose prospective allegants for torties who ‘contribute’ to SNAP or ii) SNAP knows that there wouldn’t be much of an interest out there among ‘victims’ for mere therapy or iii) SNAP knows that without the money sent-along by the torties, there would be no budget for SNAP to continue doing anything at all.

But none of the above here constitutes evidence – or even the possibility – that the Church, rather than the torties, is behind SNAP and funding it and pulling its strings.

And if JR is then saying – as it seems to me that he is – that the only other victim group (or groups) out there simply hold “conferences” on “ritual abuse”, then that raises the question as to why there has been no demand among ‘victims’ for therapeutic services based on these hypothetical victims’ being in-touch-with their own felt needs for therapy. And yet that does not seem to have ever happened.

And for that matter: if the rather tangential (and perhaps also vaguely-defined) subject of “ritual abuse” is the only thing that this or that (can it really be all of them?) victim group is the only subject such groups can come up with, and their ‘membership’ doesn’t call the group leadership to anything more substantive, then what does that say about the interests or concerns of the ‘victims’ themselves?

And if, in order to account for that oddness, it might then be proposed that all these putative victims don’t really know what they want (and thus need a ‘leader’ or a ‘magnet’ to draw them and also shape them) then what might that say about the victims themselves? In this scenario one would have to ask: Are they really that helpless and almost feckless in terms of their own putative interests – which interests were created by the theoretically ineradicable and vivid experience of their “rape”?

And – continuing in this scenario – of what use would the Church be in somehow becoming that ‘magnet’? We have discussed several times the substantial functional and practical problems with the Church somehow ‘leading’ victim groups. (And anyway, if the Church is allegedly running SNAP (and perhaps Bishop-Accountability too?) then clearly this isn’t the way to proceed.) For that matter, one can rightly wonder how many paid allegants have actually gone and gotten themselves ‘therapy’ in any form with the monies they have received, which therapy they would theoretically need in light of the life-wrecking experience of their allegated “rape”.

I have no idea what it means to be “raped without playing dress up”.

And – again – if after all this time the putative ‘victims’ have not gotten themselves together (presuming that they are alert enough to realize that SNAP is not – allegedly – responding to their desires and needs and interests and objectives ) then why would that be? The alternative explanations on offer seem to be that either a) they have been and remain helpless in all of this and need a ‘magnet’ leader who would almost have to be something more of a complete controller of victims in order to bring them to a motivated interest in their own needs or else b) they really weren’t interested in such victim groups at all (and perhaps were satisfied with the SNAP game-plan of being helped-along to a willing tortie). I can’t see where (b) is less credible an alternative than (a).

I don’t follow the “mumbo jumbo” and “incantations” bits. And while “rape is a crime”, we – as always – have to i) be clear on the definition of “rape” and ii) establish who was and wasn’t, is and isn’t, a genuine victim of that crime.

Then at 105PM on the 15th JR reports that he has only “met no more than 25 to 35 victims”. Which means that all of this theorizing and assertion is based on a rather small sample base indeed (compared to the putative myriads of victims who are ‘somewhere out there’).

And while it is surely true that “not all victims are activist in nature”, I don’t find it credible that almost none of them have found the motivation or ability to start up an alternative victim-group. And – for that matter – it would appear that under these rubrics JR is not really an “activist” either, at least not successfully, and remains merely a commenter – however frequent.

And if – as JR asserts here – the Birmingham group was somewhat successful, then how is it that such success did not somehow prompt further developments along these lines among the myriad non-Birmingham victims?

Although it would then appear – from what this “Funny though” paragraph asserts – that the Birmingham group “got much farther connecting with other Birmingham victim’s [sic] and getting publicity so more victims might come forword [sic] than anything SNAP’s ever done”. I would really need to see some evidence to support that; SNAP has played a significant role in the Stampede and I can’t recall running across many – if any – media and publicity references to the Birmingham group in anything resembling a recent time-frame; yet SNAP is still considered – with Bishop-Accountability – the media go-to group for sound-bites when they are required.

And if very few ‘victims’ “met up” “unless you could sue” then does that perhaps indicate the actual operational objectives of the ‘victims’? Thus again: it seems highly possible (perhaps even probable) that ‘victims’ were not interested in much beyond ‘suing’ (for a settlement) and sought nothing further in terms of getting-together or getting therapy or anything else (and perhaps even felt that they didn’t need therapy and thus only needed and sought the settlement monies).

And it is equally possible that ‘victims’ who “didn’t want to be seen publicly” (before and/or after they successfully sued for settlement monies) didn’t take an interest in any such publicity-shunning victims (or perhaps figured that there are not really many more ‘somewhere out there’).

And also – of course – we are now left with a putative myriad of non-suing and publicity-shunning ‘victims somewhere out there’ whose existence is thus merely theoretical or imagined. And thus such a myriad remains a rather “spectral” entity, and possibly even phantasmagoric or fantastical.

And it would also seem that if not even Donahue or Oprah managed to catalyze such a group, then once again we have to wonder if such a myriad group existed or exists to be catalyzed in the first place.

And again: if SNAP is now running some sort of highly-selective and managed conference, then that may say a great deal about SNAP’s primary objectives, but it says nothing to support the idea that SNAP is a tool of the Church rather than of the torties.

Nor, lastly, is the bit about being unfamiliar with “the web and computers” really sufficient here. JR could easily hire the services of a web-savvy techie to do the technical work necessary to set up a website (and many ISP’s now offer an easy, step-by-step website set-up walk-through, so setting up a site is neither technically demanding nor expensive). And in saying this I am not revealing heretofore secret or arcane information about the possibilities available on the Web.

Thus – regardless of what ‘Kay’ may believe about “devils and angels” – we are in the end left with nothing more than the mere assertion that JR and ‘Kay’ “know what SNAP really is”. But whatever may be the truth of that statement, it is certainly not true that either of them have established in any sort of credible way that the Church is master-minding the whole victim-group dynamic (or lack of it) on the Web or in any other way.

Who needs an alternative to SNAP when everyone including you and the media believe SNAP is what it says it is?

Please remember Kay and I and others who loathe SNAP, started off as true believers. It took us years to get the truth. And we fought against our feelings for years, YEARS; believing SNAP to be truthful.

Do I expect you to "get it' overnight? No. Do I expect you to get it at all? Eventually.

"Raped without playing dress up" means my defining ritual rape as "dress up." Mumbo jumbo means prayers to either god or the devil or both. In other words incantations to either imaginary diety isn't the crime. rape is the crime.

Why, if you were SNAP's leadership, wouldn't you want more and more victims coming together, Why wouldn't you want more participation from the injured than less? Just to protect a "career" that might not exist if more people joined actively and voted on your leadership abilities? That's a "movement" in your mind? That's a business in mine. Leadership and policy choices chosen by who? The very same unelected leaders? Nice. SNAP and VOTF are useless for victims. What have they done for us? Compared to what they do to us.

They are however very useful for the church. It looks like people care about victims when they don't.

You are kidding right? Barbra Blaine and David Clohessy couldn't attract a refigerator magnet.

They are all that's been put forth in the media as valid for victims. Why would victims look for anything else if "trusted" media says they are the real deal?

(Both the left Phil Donahue and the right Bill Donahue say SNAP is what it says it is. They cross authenticate SNAP)

Victims wouldn't question such very crossed authentication (from both left and right). Thereby SNAP's major church directed misson was accomplished. Victims call SNAP; and a victims movement dispersed by SNAP is a Fait accomple'. No votes no questions no real movement just SNAP. Doing it's "heroic' job of repping us against our will in the media. So more victims will call SNAP only to vanish under the SNAP banner.

You won't post anything about my comment on 2/15 at 0940 because what you may have learned in that comment may have been shocking, it does not fit into your plans to call anyone who is not catholic a bigot or church hater. Why bite the hand that feeds you right ?

What I like best is the comment you made to Julie.on 2/15 at 9:19. First let me say at the time I wrote this comment Julie has failed to answer why she feels her abuse was major I will assume compared to me or Jim whose abuse in her eyes must have been minor. I would and have a concern that she is able to categorize sexual abuse of any kind.

Now I won't stand in the way how any victim wants to deal with or accept their abuse, I don't care if she wants to have her abuser over for dinner. But is it fair for someone else to tell me how I will deal with mine. Is it unfair for me not to ask the same question so many other people are still asking.

Look at the heading of this blog. What can mainstream media do to improve the reporting of the catholic church. It should read what can the catholic church do to improve the reporting of the catholic church. Why TMR posted this article confuses me, it only shows the negative feelings of the church are still there no matter what you, I or anyone else believes.

I will always accept the prayers from Julie, it can never do any harm, fact is those prayers can always make me a better husband, father and yes a fighter to see the catholic church answers to every abuse victim they created.

One thing that Julie should know is we will always be fighting for her, we will always be there for her and no membership card needed.

Dennis, But you aren't fighting for me. You want to bully me for being Catholic and saying things that are way out of line and not true. That isn't helping anybody. The Catholic Church actually saved my life after what happened to me.

No Julie, I would never bully you for being a Catholic and believing in the faith.

What I will do is make you as a parishioner accountable for the actions of your church. I have said it before and I will say it again your church is not made up of its clergy, but people like you who sit by and do nothing.

However, that is beginning to change. There are parishioners who are saying enough is enough. Please click on my link on 2/17 at 10:52. I have also been told in passing there are many archdioceses in this country with parishioners not asking but demanding that laity be involved with every decision that is made. No more secret documents, No more closed doors. The more I learn about this and the archdiocese who want to put this into place I will be sure to pass it on here.

You also state I have not told the truth. An accusation that I know is not true but if you would like to elaborate feel free.

Now if you feel the catholic church has helped you that is great. But you are one of the very single digit few they have, or is it you as a "major" victim did not rock the boat ?

This I am a Catholic and you hate me reminds me of those who play the race card.

Who are you to tell any Catholics what to do within or concerning their Church? Are any Catholics telling you or any other religions' adherents who or how to worship or be faithful to their beliefs? What arrogance!

Liberals really do believe that they should run the whole world according to their 'super-intellects and virtues' – one just need to see the US educational standing in the world, in addition to her moral status, to know how well our leftist curriculum has benefitted our society for the last two generations.

Here's an idea- you mind such matters in your own church- you know, where absolute perfection reigns (not even one 'hypocrite' to be found there, I am sure), and we'll manage our own internal matters.

How many billions have your church, or any secularists, paid out for abuse claims against minors? How many of your clergy or 'high priestess' have been imprisoned or lost their 'vocations' or reputations? None? Really? You mean to tell us that this disgusting human stain is only expressed by priests in the Catholic Church? Logic defies the bigots claims at every turn.

By the way- the grass-roots efforts by those 'good' KC parishioners are headed up by none other than the 'good' Fr. James Connell of Catholicwhistleblowers. Nope, no ideology/politics there!

Why would any sane person, who wanted to help victims, even think about holding a"market share" regarding alternative victims groups? That's not how "movements" work. Come one come all. All are equal in movements. No market leaders. If some groups are bigger than others, wealthier, they are more inclusive of equals not less.

Movements have a matrix. Where's SNAP's matrix? fr.Tom Doyle; fr. Bob Hoatson? Jason Berry, Active catholics all. One present priest, one former priest; Blain;Clohessy both active catholics??? All heavily conservative. All catholic college degrees. All active catholics all the time. Funny that none of the victims of clerical raped who post here are active catholics, anymore. But the entire, so called, "survivors movement" is all active catholic conservatives all the time.( Give me the odds on that happenning and add to them the odds of women's leadership occuring, naturally, in that conservative milieu, when 80% + of clerical victims were male? )

Where are the rest of the accutely catholic degreeed and priestly rebels? Where are the leftist catholic priests and believers? Just this one tiny group of "pro victim" catholic conservatives fighting for victims? And no body else? Only conservative catholics? I don't think so.

Most catholic conservatives are like you guys.

SNAP lept into public conciousness fully formed; fully funded and fully authenticated by Jason Berry and Tom Doyle and VOTF., and authenticated from the left by Oprah; Phil Donahue because they, SNAP posed like leffties; only they were not.

But somehow SNAP wound up being disliked and discredited by lefties like me and everyother activist who's ever come near them. Can you name any other "movement" where that's happened? I can't. Unless I think of COINTELPRO. (look it up, those who don't know).

Do you think black folks questioned SNICC or the NAACP's authenticity they way, we victims question SNAP's?

As an example of conservative catholics leading victims "institutions', Thnk of Terry Mc Kiernan, head of Bishop Accountability. The nicest guy you'd ever want to meet. Sensative; empathetic; smart and concerned but a, up front, supporter of the Tridentine, the old latin, mass. Not exactlly coming from the left, not exactly 2nd vatican council with that stance, is he?

P Kay and my knowing that SNAP is the church came from YEARS of daily interaction with SNAP in L.A.. YEARS. Not minutes; not hours; not days; not weeks; not months but years.

How much interaction with SNAP, any activist movements; or the victims cause, have you had? Yet you believe it's all that it says it is. It's only us victims you question as authenticate not our church created representatives, SNAP. Now that is interesting.

The Birmingham Boys were successful because they had Birmingham in common. An ad was placed by one victim in an area where Birmingham had been posted, asking If any one remembered fr. Birmingham. The Birmingham boys had Birmingham as their link. The rest of us don't have a common link other than our clerical abuse. Diffrent geogrphics, differend perps. Next to immpossible to link up. But SNAP had the media behind it from the get go. Not easy to make happen. Victims called SNAP and we were and are trapped. It's evil but very smart. If you think of evil as smart. I don't.

A bit more about the “ritual abuse” topic which JR reports some (or all) of the victim groups still deploy as a conference topic.

The term is one readers may recall from the McMartin Pre-School Day Care Satanic Ritual Abuse trials of 30 or so years ago. The idea of “ritual abuse” is that some persons perpetrate some form of abuse as a requirement for fulfilling some ritual in which they believe. (In the McMartin and similar cases, the theory was that Satanists among the day-care staffs needed the children in their care as sacrificial-victims (though not necessarily the ultimate sacrifice involved in killing the sacrificial-victims) in some of their Satan-worship rituals.

The term is hardly accurately applied to the Church. There are no Roman Catholic rituals that require the sacrifice of human victims in order to appease or worship or inveigle-the-help of God. But – no surprises here – it certainly makes for a nifty sound-bite or headline: Catholic Church and clergy ritually abuse children.

If some victim-groups tied to the Catholic Abuse Matter are still pushing this theory, then they are far far along a path that leads nowhere (presuming truth and accuracy are important objectives).

I would also make a couple of points in regard to a comment made by “Dennis” (the 16th, 758PM) in a response to ‘Delphin’.

First, he raises the indeed tantalizing question of a) just how one categorizes ‘abuse’ along the definitional spectrum from ‘major’ to ‘minor’ and then b) just who is authorized (so to speak) to do so.

From the beginning, this problem created a conceptual and tactical problem for the Victimist, and consequently the Abusenik and Stampede, playbook: on the one hand, one does not want to i) admit that there is such a thing as a ‘minor’ instance of ‘abuse’ (however defined) because in order to keep the numbers up, one wants to cast the widest possible definitional net.

Yet on the other hand, one doesn’t want to have to state unambiguously and publicly that there are absolutely no distinctions to be made in terms of assigning a place on any ‘spectrum’, because that inevitably leads to x) the clear appearance of having an over-broad and over-vague definition of ‘abuse’ (and un-congenial questions might be raised as to the competence and integrity of one’s assertions about ‘abuse’) and y) the clear indication that even the least instance of ‘abuse’ can yet be eligible for characterization as having (definitely and inevitably?) caused the most profound and permanent and life-wrecking consequences.

And while (y) is exactly what the torties would want both public opinion and a jury to infer, yet they don’t want to risk saying it outright because when you do say it outright it clearly sounds like it is indeed an over-the-top assertion.

And – as always – the Stampede is best-lubricated not by the public and any possible jury considering this whole assertion carefully but rather by the public and any possible jury simply presuming and inferring quietly among themselves that the assertion is true and can be relied-upon without any deeper questioning. Thus the Game can begin with the player already on first, rather than any allegant or tortie having to go through the painful and uncertain experience of actually stepping up to the plate, swinging, and actually hitting the ball.

It is precisely for this reason that we have seen in the past decades the sustained effort to have any and all instances of sexual ‘abuse’ or ‘assault’ referred to under the blanket term “rape”; and in order to effect that – of course – the definition of “rape” has to be expanded like play-dough.

A variant of this is to conflate the legal term “statutory rape” with the legal term “rape”. The former term is governed not by the intensity of the alleged criminal act, but merely by the age of the person upon whom the perpetration was made – such that there are in State laws some instances of “statutory rape” that qualify as misdemeanors or lowest-level felonies. The latter term is governed (in theory, anyway) by the act itself, which traditionally encompasses and indeed requires forcible penile penetration of the victim.

The sustained effort of the past decades is to conflate the two such that the vivid and rightly alarming term “rape” can be applied to instances of sexual-encounter which do not rise to the level of forcible penile penetration; naturally, all of those lesser instances of sexual-encounter are the most numerous by far, and to encompass them under the catchy term of “rape” drives up the “rape” numbers astronomically – which is the objective of this effort.

And who is ‘authorized’ to make such a distinction? The sustained effort by Victimist and thus Abusenik interests is to claim that only the (self-declared and perhaps un-proven) ‘victim’ can be allowed to make this distinction of assigning ‘major’ or ‘minor’ status to a claimed instance of perpetration. The rationale put forward for this rather counter-intuitive insistence is that only ‘the victim’ really ‘knows’ how it felt; and beneath that is the utterly subjectivist presumption that any act can only be classified according to its (declared) effect on ‘the victim’ and therefore cannot and must not be classified according to any objective rationale.

And beneath all this is the Victimist legal theorizing to the effect that sex-crimes are not primarily a matter of their relationship to any (objective) public-order but rather that sex-crimes are primarily a matter of their painful effects-on and consequence-for ‘the victim’. All the rest is patriarchal, objectivist, old-school doodoo.

We see this daffy but ominous legal theorizing played out in (among other instances) the Philly DA’s appeal of the PA Superior Court’s reversal of the Lynn conviction: the DA is working on the (Victimist/Abusenik) presumption that since there is a ‘victim’ and that ‘victim’ reports great pain and life-wrecking consequences, then there must have been a crime (why else would a ‘victim’ make a claim, except to express the ‘pain’?) and absolutely no other legal considerations should be allowed to interfere with the DA and the State acting merely and solely and primarily as the avengers for the aforesaid ‘victim’.

I once noted in comments here a statement made publicly by the ex-ADA Victimist attorney Wendy Murphy to the effect that she would be very happy if SOLs were weakened because then (I am quoting from memory here, hence the single – rather than double – quotation marks) ‘the children will get justice even if there is no evidence’. Readers may wish to contemplate the profoundly lethal problems inherent in this burbly and cheerible assertion that you don’t need evidence of a crime to justify conviction for a crime.

So I am saying that the Victimist/Abusenik play here has been to try to undermine the credibility of any objective observer (including the public and jurors) to come to any independent assessment and judgment as to the severity (or even actuality and truth) of any particular alleged instance of sexual abuse/assault. And instead the play seeks to substitute the presumption that only ‘the victim’ can be the judge of ‘the victim’s’ story and claims. Which, of course, takes us almost directly and immediately back to the pre-Modern era of “spectral evidence” such as we saw in the witchcraft trials in Salem in 1692.

And further: not only must ‘the victim’ be accepted as the only reliable reporter here, but also that ‘the victim’ absolutely must be accepted as truthful and accurate in all respects. And ditto here in regard to 1692.

My second point in regard to this “Dennis” comment is in regard to the claim that what is required in all of this is not better (i.e. more accurate) reporting by the media, but instead that the key need here is for “what the catholic church can do to improve the reporting of the catholic church”.

This assertion – neatly – brings us right back to square-one: does the Catholic Church not now report more accurately and fully than any other organization on the planet (including, as I noted on the previous TMR article’s comment-thread about a very recent Wall Street Journal op-ed, the U.N. itself ).

And even in regard to past history, we have seen and examined on this site more than enough instances where what the Abuseniks claimed from this or that released-document was not actually borne-out by the documents themselves. Which, at the very least, opens up the possibility (perhaps the probability) that Abusenik claims of Church non-reporting need to be looked at carefully before being credited as accurate.

Thus we see that careful examination has the same effect on ‘activist assertions’ (if you will) that holy-water has on vampires. Because analysis and assessment and rational objective judgment always work to gum-up the works of a good rip-roaring Stampede.

And the Victimist/Abusenik solution to that un-congenial reality is to hide behind “the children” like bank-robbers behind a hostage, in order to force the public to go along with their claims and assertions regardless of any ‘un-empathic’ or ‘sociopathic’ or fusty old-school ‘fetishizing’ of law and due-process of law and even due-process of rational and careful thought and assessment.

And yet it is by all of this hugely dubious (and profoundly dangerous) legal theorizing that assorted ‘activists’ claim to be “fighting” (note the nicely heroic and self-serving and self-aggrandizing imagery).

And if any of this “confuses” “Dennis” then I would suggest that he needs to do further serious thinking about this topic.

With this particular blog I believe TMR truly thinks the catholic church is getting an unfair image portrayed within mainstream media. Then you read a story like the one above.

While reading the story I could not help take notice from were the story originated. It came from the Star Ledger, a media outlet this site and others feels is unfair to the church like so many others. Though this story may not be a major issue to those outside of the church, reading the comments at the end of the article clearly shows it is no minor issue.

If I was TMR I would be very upset with this article, not because of the facts that have been told, but because here I am trying to do everything possible to change the negative thinking of the church, and then an Archbishop goes and plans something like this.

I can only hope that Dave or anyone from TMR who has tried and tried their best to defend the catholic church will be able to cuddle up next to one of those fireplaces on a cold night, or jump into the swimming pool on a hot day.

Well, what we have from JR now is a shower of bits; in World War 2 this was called “chaff”, little bits of aluminum foil released into the air to confuse any coherent radar readings.

I will simply go down the list in chronological order of time-stamping (all on the 17th).

1136AM: “Putative” as in ‘supposed’ or ‘alleged’. The rest of this paragraph, based on his wrongly-defined “putative”, consequently fails.

We notice again that JR – who has recently gone after ‘Ken W’ for ‘psychologizing’ or such – so easily tosses around who is “sane” and who is not.

I certainly didn’t say that SNAP or the strategy behind SNAP was a good one (let alone a “sane” one) but I will say here that it was an effective one, since the Anderson-SNAP strategic axis has certainly had its desired effect. JR’s theory of ‘movements’ seems to me to reveal his basic approach to analysis: come up with a quickie explanation that will seem responsive to the immediate discussion and call it a day’s work. Thus this bit about “all are equal in movements” is not a description but rather (apparently) JR’s idea of how “movements” should work, rather than how they do work. “Movements” quickly self-organize into hierarchies in any human enterprise. The Soviets got going by promising differently, and yet the Russians wound up saddled with the Soviet government and the old USSR.

SNAP’s “matrix”, I would say, is external to the organization: it is Anderson’s guiding strategic vision, for which all the SNAP staff are merely the factotums and fronts. SNAP’s support is exo-skeletal, and not endo-skeletal.

And I cannot accept or comprehend the assertion that all of the SNAP honchos are “conservative” – in whatever way that is meant. But apparently JR is trying to keep up in the air the ‘ball’ that while the SNAP leadership is (putatively) conservative and still-practicing as Catholic, the Abuseniks who post here are not-practicing Catholics. He then extends this trope to “the entire, so-called ‘survivors movement’” – which certainly breaks new ground and might be of interest to members of that “movement”, however it is defined. (And are we soon going to be left with this: that nobody but the Abuseniks who post here is actually genuinely speaking for the allegants?)

And he then riffs on “the odds of that happening” (and we still don’t have a clear concept of that “that” in the first place), dragging feministical thoughts into the process and somehow winding-up with the point that 80 percent or more of “clerical victims were male”. (Which point seems to work toward a homosexual interpretation of the Abuse Matter, which – although it is hard to follow the bouncing ball – he was somehow ‘against’.)

Then, in the “where are the rest of” paragraph, JR seems to be trying to support that bit by tossing up questions based on the already fallacious presumption that SNAP is “conservative”.

Then the mere global assertion that “most catholic conservatives are like you guys”. In addition to the obvious problems with that unsupported assertion, am I to imagine that I am a “catholic conservative”?

SNAP “leaped into public consciousness” [correction supplied] – according to my theory of SNAP – because it was a front comprehensively backed by the Anderson Strategies and the torties. And in the media aspect of those Strategies, SNAP quickly made itself ‘media-friendly’ and thus garnered the position of being the go-to ‘other side of the story’ in the Abuse Matter, because Anderson saw that there was no organized victim-voice, and thus SNAP filled that vacuum for the media.

As to whether SNAP “posed like lefties” [correction supplied], it appears that JR in this comment is playing with the idea that SNAP is conservative (and thus ‘right-y’) while true victim-advocates are “lefties”. Readers can make of that what they will; but it does nothing to establish that the Church was/is the power and governing force behind SNAP.

Whether JR is actually an “activist” or merely a frequent-commenter would depend on his sustained and continuous record of actions. Whether SNAP became “disliked and discredited by lefties like me and every other activist who’s ever come near them” is an assertion that would have to be demonstrated by some sort of evidence (especially since it so conveniently fits into JR’s personal vision).

Can we “name any other ‘movement’ where that’s happened”? I would suggest the Soviet Communist Party after Stalin took over and the original revolutionaries opposed his centralizing and his oppression of the proletariat and the peasants (until he eradicated all of those original revolutionaries in the mid-1930s purge-trials). I might also suggest the Democratic Party in this country, especially since its most recent banner-bearer has run afoul of revolutionary hopes and dreams.

And in that regard, the “COINTELPRO” reference doesn’t seem to be relevant at all here, except to distract us with the dodgy implication that JR is genuinely rather knowledgeable about various bits of stuff (and the rest can “look it up”).

I don’t know if JR is aware of the substantive differences of opinion as to how the civil-rights movement was to proceed back in the 1950s-60s (differences of opinion that got Malcolm X killed, among other things). Also the Cartoonish broad-brush “black folks” (as if that term accurately denoted a coherent and consistent body of opinion and theory) is not at all useful for historical assessment (although it works nicely for making Cartoons, and Cartoon-thinking is what keeps Stampedes in business).

1143AM: I have no idea what “negatively authenticated” means. But so often the incomprehensible terms hide mushy and incomprehensible thinking.

And once again JR can be seen working toward the vision that aside from himself and perhaps those whom he designates as allies, just about every other victim-voice (and “activist” to boot) is somehow illegitimate and a “fraud”. That vision must sustain him.

1152AM: We now are informed that JR and ‘Kay’ spent “YEARS of daily interaction with SNAP in L.A., YEARS” [exaggerated formatting not omitted]. And yet in all of those “YEARS … YEARS” [ditto] JR only managed to get to know, he has recently told us on this thread, 25 or 30 victims (genuine or otherwise classifiable). What sort of ‘activism’ is this? Somebody running the coffee concession down in the lobby might well have amassed a better record.

Thus his immediately-following question as to “how much interaction with SNAP … have you had?” arrives on the flight-line with a flat-tire or three before it even tries to begin its take-off roll.

Now that is interesting.

1204PM: Apparently the “common link” of the utterly life-changing and ineradicable and inconsolable experience of “clerical abuse” is not enough to ever have generated the motivation toward banding-together. Now that is interesting. So it took, in JR’s telling of it, the experience of a common personal target –Birmingham – to get things rolling with the Birmingham group. If this is true, then JR’s entire project (or vision, anyway) of creating a unified national victims-group is faulty from the get-go because (to borrow a trope) ‘all abuse is local’. In fact, as JR himself here admits, it is “next to impossible” – now that is interesting.

It was the genius of the Anderson Strategies to seduce the media (who were more than ready to be seduced) into generalizing a ‘narrative’ of Pure Innocence Assaulted (or ‘Raped’) By Purely Evil Catholic Clerics. This gambit simultaneously a) gave SNAP national traction and b) generalized a presumption of the accuracy of the Anderson ‘narrative’ that then served to neutralize the tendency to assess or analyze and specific allegations or stories or claims.

So I would say that ‘evil’ can be very “smart” and shrewd and, according to its own objectives, successful.

1207PM: We are presented with the ludicrously illogical question “If there are so few of us real victims, then why are you complaining about compensating us?”. Short-answer: because so many ‘otherwise classifiable’ victims have gotten a check from the piñata and because – as I said before – there are very few cases we have seen where there is enough evidence to create the sense that the allegation is even minimally probable and there are numerous elements and factors pushing in the direction of many of the stories and allegations being ‘otherwise classifiable’. All of which points have been discussed at length in prior comments on this site.

1220PM: We are given JR’s (convenient and) unsupported claim that Mr. McKiernan of Bishop-Accountability is “the nicest guy you’d ever want to meet” and a “supporter of the Tridentine, the old Latin, Mass” [corrections supplied] and thus – in JR’s schematic assessment – “not exactly 2nd Vatican Council with that stance, is he?” [corrections supplied]. Whatever Mr. McKiernan’s religious stance is, and depending on what constitutes a ‘conservative Catholic’, what’s the point here? That Bishop-Accountability is also a tool of the Church? That Bishop-Accountability must also be added to JR’s expansive and ever-expanding list of non-legitimate and fraudulent victim-organizations? JR is welcome to take up this matter with Mr. McKiernan and the B-A staff; but it is of no relevance to the discussion here.

1233PM: We now reach a point where it has to be wondered whether JR comprehends what he reads at all. At what point have I ever said or implied that I believe that SNAP “is what it says it is”? I have said that it is a greatly-indentured front-organization for the torties (according to the requirements of the Anderson Strategies) and that it is therefore necessary for SNAP to prevent that reality from becoming recognized.

And if – after being ‘true believers’ – it “took [them] years” to arrive at “the truth”, and that “truth” was that SNAP is and always has been somehow a tool of the Church, then I would say they need to go back to the drawing-board bigtime.

1242PM: The fact remains that “ritual abuse” (or “rape”), is not a term applicable to the Catholic Abuse Matter. Yes, “rape” is the crime (recalling however that “rape” needs to be properly defined) but again, the “ritual” element doesn’t enter into it for purposes of any discussion here. But again, the McMartin cases were classic early examples of a Stampede – and look how they turned out.

1256PM: JR sees SNAP as a “business”, not a “movement” – which is precisely what I said. (The more acute question is: for whom is this business fronting – the torties or the Church, and I have put a lot of pixels into explaining why it is greatly probable that SNAP is a front for the torties.)

JR doesn’t like the undemocratic approach of SNAP’s leadership, but that’s not our problem here. I certainly wouldn’t expect SNAP – as a front organization for the torties – to be ‘democratic’ because its entire purpose is to keep tight control over ‘the message’ and ‘the narrative’ and – not to put too fine a point on it – the victims (genuine and otherwise-classifiable).

And if JR could kindly explain how he has arrived at the (as written here) utterly unsupported assertion that “they [i.e. SNAP] are very useful for the church” then that would be very nice. Because as it has played out here in this comment or series of comments, JR has spent many pixels on irrelevancies, and none whatsoever on this one vitally relevant point.

And I would advise him that in doing so, he needs to take into account his ‘next to impossible’ statement made earlier in the day here, which would indicate that there are determining factors endemic to the victim-issue that – all on their own – prevent any comprehensive general victim-gathering, and that thus the Church’s effective role in allegedly preventing the in-gathering of victims (however defined) would be – at best – nugatory.

Thus – and lastly – to 119PM: It was precisely my point that the SNAP leadership were not ‘magnetic’ – because that would require some amount of independence and that’s the last thing high-rollers want in a front-organization’s leadership. Instead, SNAP was simply stood-up (to use the old military term) in order to get the high-ground in that vast media vacuum; after that was successfully achieved, then ‘attraction’ would be basically a matter of default, i.e. ‘victims’ would gravitate to SNAP (as did JR and ‘Kay’ – until whatever happened to sour the milk there).

The rest of this 119PM comment is just a rehearsal of JR’s objections to SNAP and he is welcome to them without any great objection on my part. Except – but yet again and again – the sly yet utterly un-supported bit about “SNAP’s major church directed mission”, which is yet again precisely the one point where JR expends no pixels whatsoever in explanation.

So – alas – no “problem solved”.

It’s convenient for JR’s Cartoon that he has glued his major bugbears – SNAP and the Church – together, so as to make it a handy two-fer. But it won’t work simply as a mere assertion (no matter how often it is repeated) and if he has any evidence or even coherent theory that he thinks can make it work, then he is going to have to put it up here.

I've told you again and again. SNAP's overall purpose is to ameliorate damage to the catholic corporate church by controlling the linking up of victims.

When SNAP has it's annual conventions, where victims from all over could meet each other. The cost of attending is so prohibitive, air fare , hotels, food etc, that only a very bourgoise level of victim can attend. At these conventions "events" are schedualled one right after another (all "led" by non victims). Literally, loud music is played between events so conversation is drowned out and talks between people are forced out of the hall. It's praise SNAP all the time, no time to question SNAP leadership as to how they behave; how their policy is chosen and who chooses it. Rather important questions don't you think?

Yeah- another conspiriacy theory by the resident whacko? Who in the libby Johnson Admin killed Malcom X, Lady Bird?

We'll know the cross-over to Looneyville is complete when we see the SNAP-Church theory hooked up with the US government/Roswel/Kennedy/Malcom X/MLK /contrails and all the rest of the whacko-bird tinfoil hat theories.

Long story short, we Catholics want the guilty punished, the victims compensated, and we also want fair oversight over all of this mess. We also want innocent priests falsely accused to be vindicated, because they are victims. I think there is a mindset among the average Catholic, that if some false claims get through, so be it, as long as there is justice for the innocent victims. However, there reaches a point when we see witch hunts, and liars like David Clohessy, and need to speak up and make sure everything is fair and the lies and scam jobs don't take over. Because in that case, we the average Catholics, are being victimized.

Julie that is exactly what we've said. There are in fact only two people here who don't want what you've just said and isn't me and it isn't Dennis.

Could the same people that created the comittee called SNAP and the comittee called VOTF. Could they somehow not influence the creation of TMR? (who is always showing the worst pictures of his deemed "enemy". SNAP; Bishop Accountability, the worst pictures they could possibly find that deamean, dehumanize their opposition (just like D and P do)) Now why all the effort?. Doesn't this very post by Dave prove my premise: The crosshatching of SNAP's "validity" in representing victims Happens by your agreeing a) they are your enemy and b) That they truely represent victims. Niether of which you have proved. You just say, they are who they say they are.

When has SNAP said word one about anything stated in your creed? Name one tenant of your faith that SNAP or any victim has denied you?

No denial of rights = no persecution.

If you, Julie, want to compensate victims, and victims want to be compensated, why doesn't your church want to compensate? Or is this some fight between the insurors and the church?

I'm sorry, to disagree but isn't the mass itself a re- enactment of the penultimate human/god sacrifice; the sacrifice god made of jesus's human life in redemption for our sins? Isn't the mass and the eucharist, in part, a rememberence and reenactment of christ coming down to man. The priest transubstanciates the host and jesus literally, returns in the mass to be eaten by mankind?

You've made my point. I think it's absurd and irrelevant compared to our rapes that ritual is even mentioned. It's great for the National Inquiror headlines and for scaring back to SNAP, or to oblivion, victims who seek community.

After finding that "the oldest and largest victims group, SNAP", out as a fraud. Why would you think I would automatically believe any other catholic led group, presented to me as all good for victims, when those groups are led by active catholics and priests? If it appears like SNAP with no victim matrix behind it, i think these "provictims" groups questionable.

As a classic example of how Abuseniks string-together surface similarities and call it ‘thinking’, we have JR’s of the 18th at 1024AM: isn’t the Mass itself “a re-enactment of the penultimate human/god sacrifice”?

Where to begin? This site is examining the Catholic Abuse Matter, which is comprised of actual allegations of sexual-abuse by clerics. The Mass utterly and absolutely neither involves nor requires any actual sacrifice of an actually-existing victim, let alone the sexual-abuse of any actually-existing designated ‘ritual victim’. Thus the theological factoid JR mentions is utterly irrelevant to anything we are working-with on this site. Nor have I ever seen any allegations or reports of allegations or references to allegations that somehow involve a cleric convincing somebody that the sex-abuse is a ritually-required essential of the Catholic Faith and that the ‘victim’ is therefore performing a ritually necessary role. (If among the eleven or twelve thousand formal allegations there are even three or five such allegations, I would be surprised.)

Nor, not to flog a dead horse, have I ever seen any allegations or reports of allegations or references to allegations that somehow involve a cleric actually eating anybody as in cannibalism.

Thus to the 18th at 1045AM, where JR asserts that I have made his point. If you are not quite sure how that happened, you will remain so after reading JR’s explanation of his assertion: that it is “absurd and irrelevant” to mention “ritual” in regard to “our rapes”. Ummmm – it was not I who raised the point about “ritual abuse” in regard to the Catholic Abuse Matter, and have we not just spent time reading JR’s 1024AM explanation of how he sees the Mass and ‘ritual abuse’ coming-together?

So JR then has just spent a second comment (1045AM) undermining the entire gist of a first comment (1024AM) – is that what has just happened here?

And as for “victims who seek community” – we have spent a great deal of time with this bit even on this thread and there appears no evidence that any such creatures exist, except in JR’s phantasm. (Or perhaps all of this is simply therapy for JR and it is merely he who would like some victim-y community and has stitched that together with the Church and SNAP to create a consoling alternative?)

He then opines that since – and I believe we agree on this point, at least – SNAP is “a fraud”, he sees no reason to trust or “believe any other catholic led group” in any of this Matter.

First, note that we are now dealing with “catholic-led” rather than Church-led. That being said, he is welcome to entertain a low opinion of Bishop-Accountability as well (and I venture that he would not be alone in that opinion).

And since he doesn’t trust “active catholics” any more than he trusts “priests” then good for him and that stance must sustain him.

And he then finds any group “with no victim matrix behind it” to be dubious. Fair enough. But he had already – and on this very thread – also asserted that any such broad-based and ‘democratic’ and ‘victim-matrix-based’ group is “next to impossible” to create.

So then and thus two questions immediately and implacably arise: how even a) entertain the possibility-of, or continually trumpet a demand-for, the formation of such a group or b) blame the Church for such a group not existing?

You want to handle or agree with the way your internal affairs are handled so be it. You must be so proud.

But don't dare complain or call someone a church hater or bigot, or complain about the billions of dollars going to abuse victims, or how your catholic church is looked at by the media and every thing else you especially whine about.

Let your internal matters continue to be handled the way they are now. NO PROBLEM.

I could not be more proud that my Church, unlike yours and all the others, admitted a problem, cleaned it up and set a universal precedent for preventing current and future abuses.

What did your church do? What has any secular institution done?

Your church and every secular institution will follow the model implemented by the Catholic Church and more children, being abused today, not fifty years ago, will benefit from these protections. I hope they also 'compensate' claimed (not proven) victims, similarly. Do you think they will?

SAY WHAT? Quit puting words in my mouth P I never ever accused the church of anything you say I've said. I never said there were human sacrifices other than as a metaphor for what we were, the victims.. You've sacrificed and still continue to sacrifice us, your victims. You in particular do that. You say we don't exist.

Ah! that's why those cannon have been rolled into place. The nutsy bush league of devil dealing (Not giving somebody hell but giving them the fantasy that demons are real, booga booga)…let's get back to Devil Talk. THE perfect subject for the low IQ'd.

" If we can't shove 'em this way, we"ll shove 'em that.. that way they'll think they're moving forward" What the church hired PR firms think is a winning strategy.

It wasn't hard for SNAP to form and rise. Truely SNAP's is the most spectacular rise of a leadership of a so called movement in the history of movements as I have seen. I've never met more than 35 victims yets SNAP and it's consignee's rose so high (with no victims) in sight they became international! and carried the victims case to the U.N..And are always THE go to source for the media. Perfect! The Media could go to the church then the church, SNAP, again to get the "whole" picture.

SNAP, priest sponsered, Posed, as it was by national celebrities on national celebrities shows. (at a time when celebrity is king), Celebrities like fr. Andrew Greely for example. And Oprah and Donahue (Both) And Katie Couric and on and on. That's how the word got out that SNAP was "for" victims.

So for victims If there's no one else to call, no one else you've heard of , you call who's there, and SNAP was all that was there. Fully formed; unchanging; behaving exactly the same from it's begining till now. Doing exactly the same things as it was programed to do from the get go: Disperse, obfuscate, scatter victims while at the same time shoving, those of us who could sue, up to the cameras to nod our heads to what ever SNAP said and listen for the first time to the cause du Jour du SNAP( usually irrelevent to victims needs),

That's why I ask, Where's SNAP's matrix? it went from backwater to broadway overnight. What incredable connections it must have made to get that media help so quickly..

That SNAP was ready to step out and get those phone numbers and e mail addresses of victims as the scandal blew up (,SNAP was all ready long planted across the country ready to roll. Not hard to do if you have all the money in the world I guess).

Boo hoo hoo, I'm a catholic and you are picking on me. Grow up man. We are all tired of hearing it.

Look at Julie's post today. She at least admits to the problem of your catholic church, why you continue to whine. You continue to complain when the facts of one of your Archbishops wants to spend a half a million dollars of church money to expand a house with pools, hot tubs, fireplaces,and an elevator. Did the pope or did he not tell your archbishops and bishops to stop living like a prince ? Do you have an elevator in your house or do you walk up and down the steps like the rest of us ?

What is truly funny is you then get upset with me when I bring those facts to light. You want your church to be reported better by the mainstream media stop giving the media and anyone else the ammo to report different.

But why get upset with me when this is how your church deals with internal matters you agree with ?

Then with a chuckle I read the first paragraph of your comment at 6:18 when you can be quoted as saying your church "admitted a problem, cleaned it up. Must I be like Publion and take up space and remind you of how your church admitted to a problem ? Do I need to refresh your memory of the hiding of abusive priests, the moving of abusive priests, the shredding of documents, the complete denial of accusations regarding abusive priests and so on and so on. Lets not forget the fight against changing SOL's

Let me ask you did Philadelphia, Boston, Alaska, Chicago and St. Paul only to mention a few come forward and admit to a problem ? Or did they do so only after the pressure of society MADE THEM.

Now with factual information please tell me what organization is using the catholic church's model to deal with child abuse ? Or are you only saying that because Oprah said something ?

Billy Graham's son has said that Evangelicals have a massive problem with pedophile clergy abuse. And a few Baptists, very few, have scrutinized what is going on in their churches, and they are horrified at the problem, and that nothing is being done about it. You can find some publications on that on the web, and a web site, http://www.stopbaptistpredators.org. Dennis never mentions, that, does he?

3 “Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? 4 How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? 5 You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.

We, Dennis; me, LDB, and Kay were victims of your own Roman Catholic Church and no other religion. We are here telling you what you and yours haven't done for us and what you all did and do to us.

You want to pretend your singled out by the media? You are delusional. Your corporate church makes the news because of it's bad behavior. It's "we didn't mean any harm" bulls*%t stance. The media isn't victimizing you. Your church leaders are.

I was going to ignore your statement regarding the Baptist church but I respect you and I think you deserve a response.

First your response is nothing more then what we have seen before. Lets look at other faiths to minimize the crimes of your own.

Now I have never said the catholic church holds the rights to child abuse and if you can find a statement me saying that I promise to you I will never post here again.

Your own comment shows that the Baptist church is not turning a blind eye to the abuse that maybe happening .

Now you question if I am involved with any other church or organization. The answer is no.

I was raped by a catholic priest and not a Baptist minister. I was a catholic not a Baptist. I experienced first hand of the operations of how the catholic church deals with their abuse victims. So like Jim, others and myself we are EXPERTS in the catholic church abuse horror not the Baptists or any other faith.

Am I concerned about all victims of sexual abuse ? Yes. I can prove that. Look at my posting regarding the California woman who recorded her attacker admitting to abusing her, The posting that Dave Pierre was so kind to write a blog on.

The school teacher at last check because of the strength of this now survivor sits in jail on 5 million dollar bail.

When "Dennis" was violently raped by a Catholic priest as a minor, did he immediately report that crime to his parents, see a doctor and file a complaint with the police in his home or the Church's precinct – were any actual reports or documentation made at the time of the alleged crime?

If so, I dont know how the Church ignored such a claim, and if it did, everyone involved should be in prison – every Church employee, to including the parents, schools officials, doctor, and police for not securing justice; if not, get to the back of the line with the rest of the 'highly suspect why'd you wait 20-30 years to come forward pseudo-claimants'. The priests in the US are innocent until proven guilty.

If you waited several years (or decades) to report most any other crime you'd be laughed out onto the street, where you belong. Don't blame the Church, or anybody else, if you're not believed after so long, especially with such a nice pay out for you if someone/anyone does believe your story.

What would you do if someone showed up from your past from 20 years ago and accused you of the same crime (rape of a minor) and only their 'word' was required for a settlement or conviction because no evidence is required and there is no SOL, and the political climate is ripe for such a lynching? Ready to turn over all that bling of yours you repeatedly brag about here? How would such a public 'conviction' play out with your family and friends? How could you ever convince them that, even though you settled to avoid a sure jail term (see Fr Gordon Macrae) or total financial ruin, you were innocent?

How cooperative would you be if that adult-claimant showed up on your doorstep today?

On the 18th at 1035PM JR either a) tries to deliberately change the subject to get himself out from under or else b) has a serious reading-comprehension problem.

Can he demonstrate where I put words in his mouth? He raised the issue of “ritual sacrifice” and the discussion proceeded from there. Now – with it having been clearly shown that “ritual sacrifice” has no actual connection to anything we are discussing on this site – JR claims a) I put words in to his mouth and – waittttt forrrrr ittttttt – b) only now, after a number of comments, does he suddenly reveal that , come to think of it, he was only making “a metaphor”.

Of course. How silly of anybody not to have realized that.

But a metaphor is a figure of speech used to suggest a resemblance; so what then is the resemblance between the actuality of “ritual abuse” or ritual ‘sacrifice’ and its metaphorical application to the Church?

Then he tries to further worm out from under by quickly trying this bit: the abuse victims (let’s not for the moment get into the ‘genuine’ or ‘otherwise’ problem) “were sacrificed” and the Church doth “still continue to sacrifice us, your victims”.

So in what way is the “sacrifice” of the Mass or any other theological aspect of the Catholic concept of “sacrifice” metaphorically applicable to “us, your victims” (and let’s definitely not for the moment get into that characterization)? What conceptual similarity is there?

I’m going to imagine that there is none. And that what we have seen here is, rather, a nicely vivid example of the Abusenik stitching-together of catchy words either because i) they are catchy and can manipulate readers’/hearers’ emotional responses or ii) because Abuseniks really don’t work with concepts and only work with the brute and simplistic similarity in the appearance of words. Which in this case works out this way: there is that awful old theological reality of ‘ritual sacrifice’, there is the Catholic term ‘sacrifice of the Mass’, and we want to present ourselves as being “sacrificed” … so let’s just tie them all together around that word ‘sacrifice’ because – doncha see? – it’s the same word all three times.

This is what we are dealing with here.

Nor have I said that “we don’t exist” (that “we” meaning victims in the Catholic Abuse Matter). I have said – and demonstrated – that there are substantial reasons for a) needing to distinguish between ‘genuine’ victims and victims ‘otherwise classifiable’; b) needing to establish i) which classification is accurate in any given case and ii) how many of each type exist; and c) therefore not presuming that all claims, stories, and allegations should automatically be presumed to be ‘genuine’ rather than ‘otherwise’ without any further assessment.

But JR gives a bit away here: what probably does not exist is the Abusenik-asserted countless hordes of genuine victims. That “we”, I would say, does not exist, and I have explained the reasons for that conclusion at great length comments on this site.

The paragraph beginning “Ah!” dissolves almost immediately into un-intelligibility, always a reliable indicator with this commenter that he is, like certain undersea creatures, squirting clouds of ink to cover what he is up to.

Ditto the next paragraph.

Then we get to SNAP. “It wasn’t hard for SNAP to form and rise”. I had said as much in prior comments on this thread; once SNAP had connected with Jeff Anderson – on Jeff Anderson’s initiative – then the dowdy and limited little bunch suddenly expanded as we now know it. (It wasn’t until Anderson met Blaine, as I said recently in comments, that SNAP’s career really took off; before that it was pretty much small potatoes.)

We can leave hanging up there JR’s self-serving flourish as to how SNAP’s rise is “the most spectacular” rise “in the history of movements as [he has] ever seen”; I don’t get the sense from any comments on this site that he has seriously “seen” all that much – but it does sound nice, doesn’t it?

But as for the rest of the material in that paragraph, I would have to say that JR simply supports my point: with Anderson (and the rest of the gang) behind it, SNAP has managed to pull off some stuff indeed.

Then we are back to the Church-connection; SNAP is “priest-sponsored” [correction supplied]. We recall that this assertion is based on the Economus document which, after repeated requests, neither JR nor ‘Kay’ has seen fit to produce.

But – to repeat what I went over a while back in comments – even if there is such a document, and even if Doyle did use the Dominican Sisters of Sinsinawa as a front to erect SNAP as a tax-exempt organization (perhaps to hide his actions and his intentions from the Church), the historical fact remains that it wasn’t until Anderson met Blaine that SNAP actually became the SNAP we know today.

And we also see, yet again and vividly, the level at which the Abusenik mind works: Doyle is a Catholic priest, the nuns were Catholic nuns, therefore the Church created and runs SNAP. We also saw this on this thread with the idea that SNAP’s staff are (nominally) Catholics, the Church is Catholic, therefore the Church runs SNAP. And also: the head of Bishop-Accountability is Catholic, the Church is Catholic, therefore the Church (apparently) runs Bishop-Accountability. Should people with thought-processes like this be allowed to operate heavy machinery?

Whether we are also supposed to imagine that Donahue, Oprah, Katie Couric are Catholic and ditto … is for the readership to consider. Fr. Greeley’s relevance here is apparently that he was a “celebrity” (and, of course, Catholic), unless JR has some more relevant connection to explain.

As for the claim that there has been no other group “to call” or that ‘victims’ have “heard of”: this characterization can as easily support the possibility that a) allegants were only interested in a group that could smooth their path to a tortie (and a lawsuit and an easy settlement check), or the possibility that b) no persons among the hypothetical myriad of ‘victims’ (genuine or otherwise, formally-declared or still-silent) have ever gotten or desired to get an alternative group (but without the tortie connections) together.

Perhaps JR would like to contact Anderson for some pointers on how to go about the process. Of course, if the group were not going to have the tortie connections, then I wonder if there would be many among the (hypothetical) myriads who would care to sign-up. The tortie-connection seems to be a key motivator.

And then JR doth “ask”:” Where’s SNAP’s matrix?” And I respond – yet again – that SNAP’s “matrix” is exo-skeletal, rather than endo-skeletal. Meaning: SNAP’s core is the connection-to and the support-of the torties and the media; if you actually look only at SNAP itself, there is no there there. This was the Anderson Strategy and it has worked rather effectively, in terms of its own objectives.

But that “overnight” only occurred after Anderson met Blaine, regardless of whatever initial connection, via still-Father Doyle and the Sisters of Sinsinawa, that SNAP may have had to some Catholics.

And that connection with Anderson would thus also explain where “all the money in the world” came from: from such donations as came to it from various persons over the years who actually thought that SNAP was what it said it was, and from the torties who most surely knew from the get-go that it was not.

And why the Church would actually conceive-of, set-up, and run such an as it has become … still remains to be explained by JR and any other Abuseniks who insist that the Church is behind it.

As for the “Dennis” comment on the 19th at 1102AM: in order to Keep The Ball Rolling we now get a ‘report’ about incidents that happened in the Year of Grace One Thousand Nine-Hundred and Eighty-Eight, now over a quarter of a century ago. And at this point, what is ‘surprising’? And did the police not think it worthwhile in 1988 to extradite this man (who only worked in the AOLA for 10 months, according to the report) from Mexico? And have they not found him in the ensuing quarter of a century? Why not? And why is this ‘report’ (apparently only a day or two old now) considered ‘news’ at all at this point?

The only real “surprise” in this report – such as there might be – is that it doesn’t really look into the questions at all.

But, like Gomer Pyle, “Dennis” professes himself surprised. And no surprise there.

Have you ever met Jeff Anderson? I don't think you'd find him very calculating or complex. He's much more of an appeaser really. He's really kind of run of the mill as lawyers go. Jeff Anderson isn't smart enough to create SNAP and niether are Blaine and Clohessy. Father Tom Doyle, however, is smart enough and did in fact invent committees to control victims. One was Snap; one was Votf. Committees who authenticated each other to be what they say they were. Sans any proof. Other than catholic vouching.( Not exactly historically bankable) imho

The church like any super rich corporation bets on both sides in a contest; that they might win no matter what. But the church couldn't trust victims to pick our own reps and legal leaders. They made sure like Nixon against McGovern they were running against the perfect candidate for them to beat. Jeff Anderson hasn't exactly been poping off fireworks in the legal dropping of limitation satutes has he? How many more suits do you see on the horizon, if people can't sue? No help for victims.

Where has SNAP held national rallies supporting mass settlements for victims nationwide and worldwide . You haven't seen any because they don't. Why not? They talk about everything else but. Jeff Anderson only enters the picture where suits can be filed. No suits. No lawyers. No Jeff Anderson, Corporate church wins. Jeff Anderson always connecting victims to his hand picked lawyers in state after state. Church over all wins. Corporate church basicly picking it's oppositions' entire legal team in effect. Thanks to SNAP. This isn't about Anderson getting clients this is about SNAP controlling the victim tap for lawyers. So lawyers kiss SNAP's butt, The lawyers know where the clients are and who has them all sewed up: SNAP. Now the question is did SNAP just luck into that catbird seat or was it created to be first and formost the controller of victims in the market place?. A) there isn't that much luck in the world and B) Blaine and Clohessy weren't capable of pulling that off. They don't have the smarts; and niether does Anderson. Doyle however does have the smarts.

What is wrong with being 'anti-catholic'? Some people are using this term quite a bit lately in their comments. They use 'anti-catholic' like it is a slur. 'Anti-catholic' just seems to describe a position or opinion that is opposed to that or those of the catholic church and her faithful adherents. Catholicism, when effective, rots the mind and turns people into super-obedient followers.

I am anti-catholic and I encourage others to take that position as well. “The lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.” Psalm 23 Well, shepherds only keep sheep safe until the slaughter. The shepherd does not just magnanimously ensure that that the sheep have a great life, free from danger. The sheep are used for their product and then eaten. Want not, little sheep.

If you think that there are significant numbers of falsely accused priests and significant numbers of scamming accusers then you are deluded. You are just willfully reading the data wrong. You are biased, not wanting it to be true, and wanting only to protect the church and your faith. And that state of fooling oneself comes easily to catholics because you have to be fooling yourself about what is real to be catholic in the first place.

Why are catholics trying so hard to manufacture their own persecution right now? Well, the religion itself tells you to expect to be persecuted for your beliefs. Suffering and martyrdom are praised and are pleasing to god in the holy books. Be happy then for your suffering and persecution! Rejoice, rather than complain about anti-catholicism. Offer these things up to god that you may be pleasing to the lord. Be pro-human-suffering and I will remain staunchly anti-catholic and wholly without divine supervision.

Please replace the name Delphin with cardinal Egan or George or Billie Donahue and you'll see that old time religion raise it's "lovely" victim burning head. Morality and truth avoid you, cardinal Delphinium.

If an Orthodox priest did do such a horrendous thing (unlikely to be factual), it would acting in direct opposition of his religion. Same goes for priests that abuse minors, it is contrary to our most basics beliefs, as opposed to the beliefs of a too-significant portion of the LBGT[?] community, radical Islamists and most Atheistic societies. Look how far Belgium has come since shedding the rigors of Christianity – they can now legally kill their post-born children. Woo-hoo!

What these Ukrainian priests are shown doing (proof, you know what that is, right?) is using their bodies as barriers to the violence between the protestors and your friends in power, the Commies.

That is what both Catholicism and Orthodoxy demands. Unlike whatever it is Atheism, Socialism/Communism and Homofascism claims, it never leads its adherents to undertaking these fully Christian acts of love and courage.

On the 19th at 1147PM “Dennis” complains to ‘Delphin’ that she keeps answering his questions with a question.

Why would that be? Perhaps because he so very rarely provides any support for his assertions, and thus automatically engenders questions as to some corroboration or source-material. Is that too a “surprise”?

And as if to demonstrate the problem for the home-audience, “Dennis” then issues the assertion that “I will tell you though other church’s have learned and continue to learn from your ‘institutions’ mistakes” [sic]. And might “Dennis” wish to a) name a couple-three of those “church’s” and b) demonstrate just what steps they have taken because of what they “continue to learn” from the Catholic Church and perhaps even c) demonstrate from his source material that such “church’s” have actually surpassed the Catholic Church’s improvements?

Or are we simply to be left – as so very often – with merely an unsupported assertion by an interested party?

Then on the 10th at 1209AM JR asks (me, I suppose) if I “have … ever met Jeff Anderson”? Not personally, no. But I have the bulk of D’Antonio’s book, which was written with Anderson’s extensive input, and I have the record of the Anderson Strategies and how they have worked out in actuality.

What do we have from JR? Merely the assertion – based on who knows what – that Anderson is “much more of an appeaser really”. Really? Whence this bit of information? Because it certainly doesn’t match anything seen in D’Antonio’s book or Anderson’s own recollections or Anderson’s record of achievement in the Stampede.

And “he’s really kind of run of the mill as lawyers go”? This is an attorney who created the template for the Stampede with the Anderson Strategies and the lawsuits based on those Strategies have racked up at least two-billion or three-billion in settlements and fees. And this is, in JR’s informed opinion, “run of the mill”?

And then and then and then: “Jeff Anderson isn’t smart enough to create SNAP and neither are Blaine and Clohessy”. First, Anderson didn’t “create” SNAP (although his Strategies – as D’Antonio relates – clearly required such an organization). Second, he saw such a necessary organization ready-to-hand when he assessed SNAP, and made it his business to have that talk with Blaine.

But JR has put this gobbledygook together merely as a lead-in for trying to justify his ‘Catholic’ connection: the still-Father Tom Doyle “however, is smart enough and did in fact invent committees to control victims”. “Committees to control victims”? What are these “committees” that are suddenly mentioned for the first time so late in the discussions on this site?

And how actually does one “control” victims (genuine or otherwise)? These individuals couldn’t start their own group or go to the media and say that their needs were not being met and they were being used by a front-organization that was not at all what it said it was? None of the still-uncounted victims could do anything along these lines? Seriously?

And when it comes to “committees who authenticated each other to be what they say they were” [sic], is that not precisely what Abuseniks do? To repeat my characterization: I’ll believe you and won’t ask any tough questions about your story, and you’ll believe me and won’t ask any tough questions about my story, and we’ll all ride this gravy-train together.

But what difference would such mutual-authentication be, if the media didn’t largely buy the whole script and amplify it, to the exclusion of any other alternative possibilities as to what these groups were?

And are we also then to believe that SNAP, VOTF, and Bishop-Accountability are all in it together, and as tools of the Church? I can certainly believe that there is a synergy between and among them, but that is precisely what Anderson envisioned in his Strategies. And it has worked rather well up until now.

But – of course – since they are all “catholic” (in JR’s piling-up of his conceptual blocks on the floor here), then that proves (to his satisfaction apparently) that the Church set them up and runs them all. Ovvvvv courssssssse.

And is it really wise to introduce the thought of “historically bankable” when so many of the stories, claims and allegations that we have had a chance to examine suffer from so many evidentiary and credibility problems? But that “bankable” is a fine give-away.

And in conclusion JR leaves us with the question as to how he is supposed to know that the Church didn’t create Anderson as well. And let’s just leave that bit right up there where it was put.

Then a few minutes later at 1235AM JR now theorizes that “The church like any super rich corporation bets on both sides in a contest”. In a “contest” where if one of the sides wins then the “corporation” stands to lose billions? Seriously? In a “contest” where this “corporation” is not simply a disinterested party betting on which of the sides wins, but instead is the Party Defendant and not simply a third-party observer?

And why would the Church even think it could “trust victims” – who, we recall, had gone to the torties and into the legal forum?

Anderson has been busy enough simply with what we have in the public record, even unto now with his most recent (somewhat fizzled) gambit in Minneapolis. What influence he is exercising off-the-record i(in regard to weakening SOLs and other matters) is obviously not known, but is it at all probable that he is not working off-the-record as well as in those made-for-TV gambits that are on the record? Let the readership consider.

And again, “what help for victims” is possible in any of this by Anderson or the torties (if my theory is correct) or even by the Church (for which the possibility of running therapy groups for victims is fraught with complications)? And given even JR’s admission that in-gathering victims is “next to impossible”, how can he even raise this point?

Why no “national rallies”? I would say because a) it was the legal objective of filing lawsuits (and getting lots of nice settlement money) that governed all SNAP’s actions. And because b) any such undertaking as a “national rally” would run two hugely dangerous risks for the Anderson Strategies (and the Plaintiff/allegants): i) the danger of losing control of the script and the message would be tremendously increased if one tried to put together a “national rally” and ii) there might very well not be more than a few who would show up (think of the embarrassing non-turnout at SNAP’s 2012 10th anniversary world-celebration conference marking the Boston Globe’s initiation of its own version of the Stampede: would the Stampede have benefitted from demonstrating just how few ‘victims’ were actually involved in this whole Thing? And did many of the 11 or 12 thousand already-remunerated allegants show up for that world-conference? By amazing coincidence, no.

“No suits. No lawyers. No Jeff Anderson, Corporate church wins” [sic]. But there most certainly have been suits, there have been lawyers, there really is a Jeff Anderson and the “corporate church” has paid out billions. This is a “win”? In what universe is this a “win”?

The rest of this 1235AMcomment is simply a further riff on the phantasm that the Church controls the torties and Anderson and SNAP and all the rest. Readers may contemplate the lucubrations as they will.

SNAP – in my theory of it – was raised-up from its small-potatoes existence by Anderson and there was no “luck” involved. But SNAP is merely a front and is not actually in any “catbird seat” at all.

Thus then back to Doyle and again, readers may contemplate the probabilities as they will.

Then at 957AM on the 20th ‘LDB’ returns with more than a (so revealing) one-or-two-liner.

He is “anti-Catholic” and apparently proud of it and that’s his right and that’s that.

But his effort to pooh-pooh the possibility or probability of “significant numbers of falsely accused priests and significant numbers of scamming abusers” turns out to be merely the epithetical myah-myah that if you believe that “then you are deluded”.

And “you are just willfully reading the date wrong”. What “data” would that be, pray? And – passing over various riffs on the original epithet – we find absolutely no discussion or revelation of whatever “data” it is upon which he bases his assertion.

But, we are assured by ‘LDB’, this “state of fooling oneself comes easily to catholics because you have to be fooling yourself about what is real to be catholic in the first place”. Ovvvvv courssssssse. And we see again the Abusenik predilection for simply piling their favorite conceptual (or factoid-al) blocks together to make what they are satisfied is some sort of recognizable structure. Readers may make of it what they will.

Then a further riff on “persecution”, apparently reaching back to the early Church and “martyrdom”. But nothing whatsoever to address the issues and questions and problems under discussion here.

‘LDB’ is certainly welcome to live his life “without divine supervision” if he wishes to try it. But I could recommend the supervision of a good teacher, perhaps in the art of conducting a competent analysis and constructing a credibly-grounded and credibly-expressed hypothesis.

Other grown up functioning adult victims across America feel the same way about SNAP as I do.

Victims who haven't connect the SNAP dots, as we have and who have worked "for' SNAP hate them as well. Just because of the way victims are controled and treated by SNAP.

Now explain that please. Why is it the "oldest and largest survivors' organization" is loathed by the very people it purports to represent? Are all victims are so f'd up we no longer know what's good for us? I don't think so. I think we know exactly what we don't like. And very very few victims like SNAP. I know our feelings are valid.

I don't lose sleep over it. The true anti-catholics are those who call us that. If they were so concerned about how their church is portrayed in the media and by the world they as the parishioners and the foundation of the catholic church would do something about it.

Instead we hear the constant whining when their church is dragged over the hot coals and they act like children when negative stories hit the media.

I look at it this way. Those who post here and call us what they may, do not realize they are their worst enemy of the their church.

They remind me of the story Peter and the wolf. They have told so many untruths nobody believes them anymore.

Dennis and LDB thanks for your share. In a dogmatic religion,( redundant I know) You are either with 'em or agin 'em.

In L,A. In Chicago in Australia throughout the world city after city country after country the corporate catholic church held it's priests and it's "image" more important, more valuable than it's children. It holds it's wealth more valuable than it's own children. What can you do with an institution that is so inherently vicious and corrupt? (P and D being prime examples here of both) Does society allow it to continue with no punishment? That seems to be what's happening.

Why did your church need to change it's behavior and set new standards for itself (that may or may not be working now)? You had too WE made you do it. Do you thank us victims for helping protect your kids? Oh hell no! Instead you call us liars; thieves; frauds; anti catholic bigots. [edited by moderator] Hypocrites.

I have learned within a little of a few hours or within a few days the latest, the archdiocese of Philadelphia and its leader archbishop chaput is expected to announce the PERMANENT removal of two more priests accused of sexual abuse.

fr. john paul, some may remember as the priest who was allowed to remain at Our Lady of Calvary Church in Philadelphia with accusations of sexual abuse, and the parishioners and children of the parish were kept in the dark by the archdiocese for some time not knowing of the possible danger that walked among them.

fr.paul was only removed from ministry after his resignation stating so-called stress.

Not to rub salt into a widening wound but is this how Delphin defines "admitting a problem and cleaned it up" ?

In addition fr. james collins will also be removed based on accusations of abuse 40 years ago, and I know some are tilting their head and saying 40 years ago, but should it ever matter if it was 4 minutes, 4 hrs, 4 years or 40 years ago ? I say no.

On the 21st at 209AM “Dennis” gives us a link to a new MPR article. I recommend it to readers.

We recall that a while ago there was a dust-up in Minneapolis/St. Paul (hometown of Jeff Anderson’s legal enterprise) in which a woman left her official position in the Archdiocesan sex-abuse oversight office, and then suddenly a computer once owned years ago by an accused cleric was reported to have been recovered with some or all of a pornography stash on it; which somewhat iffy evidentiary material was almost immediately supported by the purchaser of that computer years ago suddenly coming-forward and claiming that he had just recalled that he had made a complete and true copy of the pornography stash but had stashed it somewhere back then and had forgotten until just recently (a story which raised so many more questions than it answered); then not so long ago the entire issue was suddenly dropped, but the police official in charge of all this said that she was hoping to get the Archdiocese (hereinafter: AOM) to let her see more documents.

We now get an MPR article (linked-to here by “Dennis”) which seems to be the fruit of whatever talks were lubricated by that still-not-explained soap-opera about the pornography-stash. (This MPR article does not mention that odd and iffy little soap-opera, which it had a few months ago plastered all over its pages and airwaves, at all.)

This MPR article now claims that whereas the AOM had previously (in 2004 or so) said that it had received 33 credible allegations of child sex abuse since 1950, there is now a list that indicates 70 (69 priests and 1 deacon) in that time period (none of the allegations dating after 1988). Thus double the number previously reported by the AOM; the AOM had dealt with these “allegations and suspicions … since 1950”.

Of those 69 priests, 11 were taken out of priesthood, 20 are dead, 15 are still priests although some are under various types of restriction, 17 are retired, and 6 are in a status ‘unknown’. The article also says it has its own list of a dozen more priests in “private lists and memos” but can find no information about “their alleged crimes”, only that they appeared on this or that informal or unofficial list as “possible child abusers”.

The article opines that in some instances the AOM simply “lost track of allegations” – but when that might have happened in the 64 years since 1950 it doesn’t say.

Then, slyly, the article says that “as the legal stakes climbed” (i.e. the Stampede) the AOM “demanded evidence that was nearly impossible to obtain”, and gives the examples of “medical records from the 1960s”. This surely could not be surprising, once an allegant had chosen to go the legal-forum route.

And also (again, the article gives no timeframe as to dates) that at some point the AOM stopped writing up lists. No doubt a consequence of defense and Insurer counsel insistence as part of the legal defense strategy required – again – in the legal-forum.

The article wants you to take away from this that parishioners had been led to believe that the sex-abuse problem was less (33) than it actually was (69). The fact that there is no timeframe given for when parishioners were told, such that at any point some of the accused priests had either been removed from ministry or had died, doesn’t help to get a clear picture.

The article itself notes that there were many “lists” – some in email format, some jotted down on bits of paper, some lists unsigned and unsupported, some merely referenced in memos, some in filing cabinets and some on computers – and that “police had never seen” any of them. Nor apparently, had very many other persons (adults, parents, relatives, so forth) in whatever timeframe in the past 50 years, gone to the police. (More about the police below.)

Curiously, the DA says he will not be convening a Grand Jury and the police will not be investigating. Which seems odd, unless the DA realizes that what may result will be merely an embarrassing repeat of the Philly debacle.

The article reports an AOM settlement from 2004 “between an alleged victim” in the matter of a priest, which settled for the amount of $42,000, for an allegation dating to somewhere in the 1950s or 1960s (nothing more specific). And a 2002 letter in the file about somebody’s sister’s suspicions about a priest who died in 1969.

The article gives a chunk of blurb-y space to the comments of that former female official, although without mentioning anything about her involvement in the recent soap-opera about the pornography stash. And her role in all of this from the beginning (with that porn stash bit) still seems curiously significant, although nowhere have I seen the actual dynamics of that role in all of this clearly and specifically ‘reported’.

There is a 2002 memo from an AOM official who – reasonably enough – created three categories for (16) accused priests: i) “allegations are admitted and the Charter clearly applies”; ii) “allegations are either disputed or the facts are unclear or unresolved”; iii) “those in which the facts are fairly clear but it not clear whether the conduct complained of is sufficient to warrant” removal from ministry. Fair enough.

The article immediately goes on to say that “some of the names on the list” [which list?] are now well known” but two of the accused have never been publicly revealed before. But if they are only “accused” then is it right to publish their names? Even the article admits that it isn’t going to be publishing their names “because no information exists in the public records or the [AOM] documents”.

All this is included under that female ex-official’s bit in the article because – it clearly appears – she was the original source for the knowledge of their existence, which she said she merely “stumbled upon” (in her half-decade tenure as a major abuse official).

Then the article repeats itself with an interesting twist: it was only in 2013 that the AOM “was growing wary of lists”. Which is rather late in the game for a ‘cover-up’.

She resigned, we are informed, in April of 2013 and “approached MPR News with her story in July”.

Then the article gives a bit of itself away when it mentions that whereas in 2004 the AOM had claimed there were 69 credible-allegations of abuse since 1950, yet in 2006 an “internal chancery document” lists “180 victims” – although up until now the article had been rather careful with using “alleged”; the article thus deploys that Stampede old sleight-of-hand where an allegant is quietly equated with a “victim” as if the fact had been demonstrated.

The article rather dismissively refers to various terms such as “marginal behavior”, “substantiated claims”, and “credibly accused” – all used in various AOM documents – as nothing more than a “jumble of official-sounding language”. And here we see the usual Abusenik/Stampede ploy of considering any effort at trying to comprehend the problem (or deal with legal complexities) as mere babble designed, but of course, to obstruct ‘justice’ for the allegants. And although these are internal memos among persons who no doubt are familiar with the terms, the article huffs that there is no “definition or explanation”, as if nobody involved knew what the terms meant in the normal exchange of memos and discussions. But these were AOM staffers and officials used to dealing with abuse matters, simply discoursing among themselves. Imagine, say, that the MPR was doing an article about aircraft based on internal corporate memos and huffed that nobody in the memo cloud had bothered to explain terms like “fuselage”, “aileron” or “nacelle”.

The article says that nobody at the AOM will tell them how abuse cases were evaluated. But if that means in the past 64 years since 1950, then I am not going to be surprised if nobody alive today at the Chancery can actually answer that question.

The MPR has only been able to find, it says, four priests who have been criminally convicted of child sexual abuse. What this says about the police or the people who might have simply called the police, in the past 64 years, the article doesn’t care to say.

But there is a 1988 memo in which an AOM official mentioned his personal yardstick and it certainly seems more than generous to an allegant: the story “seemed credible” to him, the allegant made the report at the request of “a reputable therapist”, the story included “sufficient accuracy of detail”, the allegant was willing to have her name released to the accused, and the allegant did not seem motivated by “personal vindictiveness” – which is generous indeed.

But then an interesting bit of media legerdemain: with the stakes now “high”, “victims now needed to prove their claims” (note again the use of “victims” as if that status were established). Further, Church officials “created difficult, vague and shifting criteria for an allegation to be deemed credible”. Might this have been in part because the definition of ‘abuse’ and ‘rape’ were themselves constantly shifting? Or because as the Stampede picked up steam further legal considerations had to be taken into account given the near-certainty of lawsuits? Or because Rome had said that if priests were going to be laicized canonically then certain canon-law requirements had to be met to insure the rights of the priest as well as the interests of the allegant? Or simply because AOM defense counsel or Insurer counsel were aware of the ever-increasing possibility of false-claims as the word spread – amplified by the media – of just how much money could be gotten with a story and a tortie?

And then and then: the article then does some pre-emptive work by explaining that in so many abuse cases there simply isn’t any actual evidence: “Most claims of child sexual abuse, in the church or elsewhere, lack direct evidence”. How very true, as I have often noted. But the Stampede solution, as the Victimist solution, to this problem (i.e. if there is no evidence of a crime, how can a crime be officially declared to exist?) is to weaken the evidentiary standards on the daffy yet ominous legal theorizing that … what? That allegants are always or almost-completely credible and truthful? That evidence isn’t necessary? That an interested party’s memory or story qualifies as evidence? Is that sound legal thinking and will any of it it generate sound legal results?

But the article quickly works to manipulate by ignoring all that and going straight ahead to remind its readers of “the horrors” of child abuse. As I have said, rats aboard a sailing-ship at sea are not a good thing, but setting fire to the hull in order to flush out the rats – claiming that the “horrors” of rats justify such a tactic – is hardly a sound or workable procedure and is bound to produce some very bad results.

And then it continues: “Once out in the open, few of those memories could withstand the scrutiny of the archdiocese or its private investigators”. Neat, but truly slimey. Would those “memories” be able to withstand police interrogation? Defense counsel questioning under oath in a trial? But the article tries to paint the situation such that only the AOM or Church lawyers (and their “private investigators” – bwa-ha-haaaaa) were the problem here. And we have already seen here on this site that some stories cannot even withstand the mild questioning in comments.

The article then goes on to discuss the case of a man who approached the AOM in 2006 about alleged abuse he suffered “in the early 1990s”. The man – “now 32” and apparently recently interviewed by MPR – was upset to find that the (female) AOM victim staffer asked him for some “psychological records” rather than go out and hunt-up more possible allegants. When he refused, the AOM deemed his allegation not credible. He felt that the AOM was “trying to gather information on my drug and alcohol problems” – which apparently to him was not what he wanted to see happen. Understandably so, but if you are going to lodge an allegation and expect official action but without official investigation, then what do you expect?

The allegant’s father felt that the AOM was trying to “find fault with his family”. Understandably so.

The AOM did, however, report the case to the local police, but – waittttt for ittttt –“police didn’t investigate”.

The father and son wondered why the police never contacted them (and yet they did nothing further to check on things over the course of half a decade), they now say, and were surprised to hear that the police had closed the case because “officers couldn’t locate the victim”. Now that is a ‘report’ that actually creates far more questions than it answers.

But amazingly, the case was re-opened just a few weeks ago. Amazing coincidence, as we so often see in the Abuse Matter and the Stampede.

The article quotes the Archbishop’s letter stating that since the police and an independent investigator could find nothing to corroborate the allegations, then the priest remained in good standing. This letter from 2010, by the way, was from the Archbishop to another Ordinary, endorsing the priest for temporary service in that Diocese and fully noting the allegation and the results.

The article closes with that father saying that he wishes the Church would stop using phrases like “credibly accused”. Understandably so.

But then but then but then but then but then: It turns out that Jeff Anderson had received all of these documents “under court seal” in 2009 (meaning that he could read them but he couldn’t make them public). So Anderson needed some sort of pretext for making them public – because if he did he just might drum up some further Stampede business.

And then, just a couple of months ago in late 2013 (just about the time of that porn-cache soap-opera that has suddenly disappeared) a local judge not only removed the seal but ordered the AOM to release the documents publicly. (Didn’t Anderson already have them in his possession?)

The judge also – most helpfully, some might say – ordered the AOM to publicly list the names of all “priests accused since 2004 of child sexual abuse”. Note that the mere accusation or allegation is enough to get a name published. Unsurprisingly, the AOM says it will appeal that Order.

But it gets better. In a hyperlink which the article does not further discuss, it turns out that last May the MN State Senate and House voted affirmatively on SOL extensions. The Governor signed the Bill into law on June 5, 2013. The Bill opens up a 3-year window for past abuse claims, and for current claims “going forward” there is no SOL whatsoever. Anderson went on record in May 2013 as saying he is looking forward to more cases being filed in MN.

So then: In 2013 in Jeff Anderson’s hometown, that female AOM official – after six years – suddenly decided she would quit in April; the State’s legislators were already considering SOL extensions (I won’t call them ‘reforms’) at that time – passed and signed into law by June; in July she went to MPR; later in the year we got the iffy soap-opera about the porn-cache which then suddenly disappeared and nobody officially involved now wants to talk about either the cache or the disappearance of the matter any longer; and from that (drummed-up pretext?) a local judge then released previously-sealed records that Anderson had but could not divulge or publicize, and for icing on the cake the judge made the AOM release them (rather than force Anderson to look like his hands were too deep into things by merely releasing what he already had in his office?).

And will all of this amazing coincidence provide a jump-start to what perhaps had been a less-than-sufficient prospective-client response to last summer’s lifting of the SOL parameters?

The data (I did, in my last post, write 'data' and not 'date') are in or at least referred to in the TMR article above. Roughly half of accusations are falsely brought? In order to get to that sort of number/percentage, you have to define most, if not all, 'unsubstantiated' claims as 'false' claims. David Pierre and TMR do this. Defining or redefining terms this way is deeply misguided. But it is what must be done in order to defend and preserve the church and the faith. Clearly, I see why interested catholic parties would want/have to do this. The church (bishops/cardinals/popes) has not been so bold as to do this sort of math publicly but it has 'thanked' those who have done it on her behalf.

As for catholicism and my alleged need for a teacher/supervisor, I grew up with this religion's teaching and mentorship. It did not work out for me. So I will politely pass on your sincerely-offered advice, revenend 'Publion'.

'Delphin', I say the same things about islam and judaism. In fact, I think I have said that I am anti-religion and anti-theistic on TMR. It does not matter because I will say it again and again. All religion is mythology. At best, it is a waste of time. You are welcome to it. But at worst, it divides and hurts people. And if any muslim or jew attacked me or anyone 'pushed back' on me for saying such things, they would be proving my point. Homosexuals do not fit properly into your list. Homosexuality is not a religion like christianity, catholicism, islam, or judaism. In contrast to religion, homosexuality is (a) real and (b) another form of love.

Your definitions of homosexuality as '…not a religion..', and that it is "real'" and "another form of love" are highly debatable philosophically, medically/psychologically and emotionally. These are not settled matters.

And, you won't submit your bigoted comments on either Judaism of Islamism on any of those religions sites, but, is it ever-so-safe to state your brave position against those religions on a Catholic site (are you wearing your flack-jacket?). Specifically, what are your criticisms of those religions (and, please, do be as graphic and pointed as you are about Catholicism)?

Regardless of your opinion that religion is 'a waste of time', it is not relevent to the Catholic Church abuse matter, so, do try to stick to the question at hand.

The question is: regarding the minor abuse matter, is the Catholic Church being treated fairly (fact-based, free of bias) by the media (TMR's main focus), and overall by the prevailing culture?

P, Why do you spend so much of your, rather limited, time left, (I think you have some age on you) defending SNAP as being what it says it is? To prove I'm crazy or to re-enforce, the Doyle game plan?

Why would so many active catholics, Jason Berry to Barbra Blaine to Tom Doyle to Jeff Anderson, why would they create and support a victim's organization that victims don't like? A victims' group that doesn't work for the benefit of victims but works for them? How does that fit into your mythology that it's anti catholic bigots who are attacking the church? It doesn't.

LDB, Dennis; Kay; myself all victims All no longer catholic. But SNAP; VOTF; Bishop Accountability are all catholic led all the time. Please tell me the odds of that occuring "naturally"?

Nuns on the Bus, NC Reporter, Doyle, Blaine, Connell, etc. = dissident catholics. They need to splinter-off and go add another 'christian' denomination to the thousands of others. Not Catholic.

And, as you know, we have the same situation with citizen-patriots; we have patriots and then we have dissident (anarchists, revolutionary, unpatriotic) Communists/Socialists/Fascists/autocrats/theocrats – which is thoroughly un-American.

Following the [typical] illogic of the 2/22 @ 5:16 post, unless you're a faithful Catholic, you should stay out of Catholic Church affairs.

If victim-claimants had gone to the civil authorities, as they were obligated upon the commission of the claimed criminal and/or civil victimhood, none of this 40-50 year hence persecution would be happening now.

The fact is that homosexuals are responsible for approximately 85% of these crimes of various sexual trangressions against minors, so, we can't ignore that factual element of the Catholic Church abuse matter. Crimes were committed as a result of the expression of the homosexual sin, not the sin of heresy or theology – these priests didn't trangress Catholic dogma or doctrine, they trangressed moral, ethical and civil sexuality laws.

Beleive me, I wish we could take the homosexual nature out of the Church, or at least infuse the Catholic nature in the homosexual. If either of these goals were possible, we'd never had seen the expression of this despicable problem in our Church, or in the greater secular society.

So long as crimes of illicit and/or depraved homosexuality plague all civilized society, it is all our business.

On the 21st at 1042 JR avoids any problems with material in his recent prior submissions by simply rehearsing his overall vision of the Catholic Abuse Matter. He then claims that “P and D” are “prime examples” of being both “vicious and corrupt”. No quotations to support those characterizations. Apparently his own occasional vivid characterizations remain merely ‘truth-telling’. Of course.

On the 21st at 202AM “Dennis” reports breathlessly that the AOP will soon announce the “permanent” (exaggerated formatting omitted) “removal of two more priests accused of sexual abuse”. And this is … a bad thing? It would seem that the new reforms are working. (And one only hopes that the allegations have somehow sufficiently been proven on some level.)

Is this not an indication of a “problem” being “admitted and cleaned up”? But this is the new Abusenik fall-back gambit: once the Church actually does start implementing the reforms and removing priests, the game is now to profess shock and dismay that any such priests existed in the first place (as if one hadn’t already been claiming that they had for quite some time).

As for the remark in the final paragraph of the comment (about Fr. Collins) “Dennis” here simply gives his own version of that comment I quoted (from memory) from an abuse ‘advocate’ that it’s nice children can get justice even if there is no evidence. But as I said: if there is no evidence, how can one justly claim a crime and then punish it? But to the Victimist/Abusenik mind this is apparently thinking too much.

Then ‘LDB’ weighs in on the 21st at 1054AM: he refers (non-specifically) to “data” that “are in or at least referred to in the TMR article”. But – nicely – he does go into a bit more detail on that and let’s see how this works out.

He asserts that the only way one could get to the number/percentage of half of all accusations being false is to “define most, if not all, ‘unsubstantiated’ claims as ‘false’ claims”. But the “half” is the opinion of persons who have worked on such cases and is not arrived-at by calculation, but by an educated assessment made on the personal experience of the assessor. It qualifies similarly to an ‘expert opinion’ in a court case.

If ‘LDB’ has similar wide experience and expertise (credential information required, please) then he is welcome to proffer his own educated or expert assessment.

Otherwise, we have a) the assessment as referenced (and linked-to) in the above article; b) the numerous factors extensively discussed in comments on this site that indicate no small probability of false-claims being lodged; and c) the examples of such allegations and stories and claims as we have been able to examine on this site.

Against all of that one can weigh ‘LDB’s bit.

Additionally, he then tries to go with the assertion that TMR is “defining or redefining terms” in such a way as to be “deeply misguided” (a nice professional stylistic usage, uncharacteristic but nice). I would say again that in light of points (a), (b), and (c) which I just mentioned the skepticism as to the validity of the ‘unsubstantiated’ claims is certainly appropriate, and indeed a lack of such skepticism would seem to me to be irresponsible in light of those points.

And that would be so simply on the basis of coherent and rational assessment of probabilities. But ‘LDB’ ducks that very un-congenial aspect and instead tries to color the skepticism as merely being “what must be done to defend and preserve the church and the faith”. Thus that any skepticism is merely business-as-usual for defending the Church.

But as I have stated several times on this site, this is merely an Abusenik Playbook gambit: i) nothing less than complete acceptance of the claims and stories and allegations and assertions is acceptable and ii) any effort to rationally and coherently examine any claims and stories and allegations and assertions – as a matter of intelligent assessment – is actually nothing but an attempt to cover-up or re-victimize or (fill in the blank). Thus intelligent assessment and rational analysis shouldn’t enter into it. I disagree.

Thus then ‘LDB’s pose as “clearly” seeing “why interested catholic parties would want/have to do this” a) doesn’t quite cover the situation and b) opens up nicely the reality that the Abuseniks are certainly as much “interested parties” as anybody who is “interested” in trying to get a clear picture through rational and coherent assessment, with as much skepticism as the situation may require. So then “clearly” might suggest to him the need for a bit of work.

And I don’t quite see where ‘LDB’ has done any of the “math” that he accuses “the church” of not doing, and I am not sure where the Church “has ‘thanked’ those who have done it on her behalf” or to whom such ‘thanks’ are being given.

As for my suggestions for his further study, I did not suggest any religious education since his beliefs are his own and not my affair. I had suggested some work in the area of clarity of assessment and thinking and expression, the need of which has perhaps been somewhat nicely re-demonstrated in his comment of 1054AM.

On the 21st at 1057AM JR asks why I “spend so much of your, rather limited, time left” [sic] “defending SNAP as being what it says”. There can be no doubt at this point that JR has either a deliberate or deep-seated reading comprehension problem: I have spent a great deal of time, even on this thread, taking SNAP apart. Could he provide some quotes as to where I am – in his mind – “defending SNAP as being what it says”?

And is it “vicious” to suggest that I don’t have much time left? Or somehow violent? Should I apply Abusenik parameters to assess those questions? I don’t think my mind bends quite that low. So let’s just leave it there where it was put.

But we note here, as we have in several other comments on this thread, the Abusenik tendency to confuse their own opinions with just about the whole world’s opinions. Thus, while I hold no brief for SNAP or Anderson or any of that bunch, I still would need to see some corroboration for the assertion that that organization is one “that victims don’t like”. All victims (genuine or otherwise)? Some victims (ditto)? Just JR and a couple-three other persons?

And once again we are presented with the ‘logic’ that since a) all the leadership of the mentioned victim groups are “catholics” and “active catholics” (the still-Father and Berry and the rest – JR ‘knows’ this, does he?) then those groups must be run by the Church because otherwise what are the “odds of that occurring ‘naturally’” [correction supplied]. I can’t tell him the odds because I have no idea of the connection between i) being an “active catholic” (an assertion which is itself unproven) and ii) the Church running those organizations. Does that problem not appear visible to him?

Also: On the 21st at 209AM “Dennis” gave us the link to an MPR article and I have reviewed it and have some thoughts, which I will put up in a subsequent comment.

Why in the sane world would SNAP want to open up their little sham-scam to discovery?

They have a good gig going, it's one that has reaped them worldly rewards in the millions, who cares if a victim-claimant gets thrown under their bus in the process of them acquiring their materialistic goal- bling?

If the Church agreed to permit and support criminal prosecution (NOT civil) of all accused priests according to the rule of law, with no possibility of damages (i.e. monetary award), would you be as vigilant and rabid in your pursuit of "justice"?

Would you trade your settlement bling in (swap) for the imprisonment of the 'priests' that 'raped' you? What drives your sense of 'justice"?

~~Kansas City, Mo. – Waiting may prove the hardest part as a petition seeking a canonical review of Bishop Robert Finn is en route to Rome.

Catholics here received notification Friday from the apostolic nuncio to the U.S. that he had received and forwarded to the Vatican their formal request for a canonical penal process investigating Finn, bishop of the Kansas City-St. Joseph, Mo., diocese.

In his brief, two-sentence letter, Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano stated, "I acknowledge receipt of your letter addressed to me. The correspondence which you sent has been forwarded to the Holy See."

This is an update to a post dated 2/17 with reference to the parishioners of KS asking the Pope to consider actions against Bishop Finn regarding his handling of a pedophile priest.

Every step their letter makes from now on is a step the parishioners of KS should be very proud of.

But, you're the only one here, aside from your little sidekick buddy, who ever threatens with libel lawsuits/claims, isn't that interesting? Is that how you've made your way through this world?

Here's a challenge for you: someone shows up on your doorstep (knock-knock) and claims that 40 years ago you sexually abused them when they were a minor. No evidence required, no SOL, and the 'political climate' is one that supports this now socially-acceptable persecution (let's suppose the pendulum swings back to a previous era where homosexuals where assumed guilty until proven innocent – just like our priests are now), only the claimants 'word' (no evidence) is enough to put you in jail for decades (see Gordon Macrae) or bankrupt you - what will you do, oh, what will you do?

On the 22nd at 1130AM we are treated to this howler: a) JR is subject to libel laws, b) SNAP hasn’t sued him for libel, c) therefore JR is telling the truth.

Thus, say, you encounter a ranter on a street corner shouting about the misdeeds of the government, and you ask him for proof, and he tells you that the proof, obviously (to him), is that he has been shouting this same stuff for quite a while and no expensive government lawyers have sued him.

As to JR being aware that he is “as subject to libel laws as anyone else”, that is nice to hear. If also a bit surprising.

Chaput today removed to more priests today with credible accusations of child abuse. Changing their titles from Father to Mr. and who will be known now until the end of time as a sexual abuser.

One of those priests was allowed to remain working by archbishop chaput for a year in a parish after accusations had surfaced, and only removed from ministry after his retirement stating so-called stress.

Why oh Why, would people not be compensated for being raped as children by people hired by the childrens church to teach and protect them? If they broke our legs or arms we'd be compensated.

Your logic( like your politic) is injured beyond reparation, it seems. You should sue your church for the damage it's done you. It said it exists (in part) to make you moral and you aren't so it's failed. I can give you Jeff Anderson's number.

Anybody see any priests around? Will they now apply the Zero Tolerance formula? Will the media-ites now categorize all such secular institutions as harboring decades old (centuries old) 'conspiracies'? Will be witness the barrage of attacks on their 'belief system', or their politics? Where is the UN? Who's suing? Where are the cottage-industry 'help' and 'support' groups?

If you had a firearm that was laying around your house with a full clip clearly dangerous to any child or adult that comes near it, would you be more considered about your neighbor who also has a firearm laying around ?

Then God forbid someone accidently shoots themself with your gun.

As you are being led away in handcuffs would your defense be " I made sure my neighbors house was safe !

You don't seem to understand Jim and I know the horrors children are facing at other organizations or schools but we are going to take care of our own house first, or what use to be we thought our house.

Do you voice your opinions at the sites or blogs of those other organizations since you claim to care so much, or do you only save your intellect for us here at TMR ?

He de-humanizes everyone here again and again if you don't agree with him.

Why? Just for our disagreeing with his and his church's take on somethings?

P, too. He denegrates and dehumanizes . What's the need? What do they get out of treating their fellow humans this way? And why do they need to hide who they are as they do it?

This isn't a normal dialog. It's like talking to someone who behind a screen in a hareem. There must be a reason they don't want to be known. They can say the dialog should be about their thoughts, what they write; but since all they both do is denegrate. Their thoughts pretty much suck.

If your arm or leg had been broken, we’d have clear evidence. But instead, we have assertions and stories and claims that have no such clear evidence at all. Thus: there’s clear evidence in the former scenario and no such evidence in the latter.

Thus my logic is not “injured beyond reparation”, although that possibility clearly exists in regard to the evidentiary integrity of certain stories, claims, assertions, and so on.

And having thus hung himself out to dry in regard to logic, JR will go for a two-fer and claim that in addition to being illogical I am immoral. His lack of chops in the logic department having been demonstrated by no less an expert than himself, he will – it is to be hoped – understand if his gambit in the morality department is given just the amount of credibility it deserves.

How nice that JR has “Jeff Anderson’s number”. JR should be sending JA a thank-you card once a month for as long as the swag holds out.

I would like to say, financially your church got away on the cheap, over all;( when it has bothered to pay anybody).

If we, your victims, had reported at the time, we were raped. You would have had to pay 5 times more than what has been paid.

Our not reporting cost us money. That's how much we were shamed by our rapes. We blamed ourselves and our inherent badness that this thing happened, you know catholic guilt. If things are going bad it must be your own fault, particularly if terrible things are happening to you. That's what we were left with from our "playing pattycake" with your adult clerics against our will: self destruction and shame. Shall I thank you for that? Was rape supposed to teach me something? How come me and the other victims are the only ones to learn these lessons?. Anyone of the readership here could have been "chosen" in our place. You weren't "picked"? Count yourself lucky.

And when we do stand up and hand the shame back where it rightfully belongs. We get you lot.Calling us bigots; fraudsters; liars; and criminals.

The usual christian love bombing till they get you in the door of the church is never seen. Oh no! Dehumanize; detract; deflect and obscure. And since everybody here has played that tone from your side I can only think : "That's not a very natural response." Most grownups start out respectfully. Not the conversations here. Why?

I dont think the two real victims that post here agree with your assessment of those of us that oppose the two resident bigots (and a few other drive-by types) hate-driven persecution of the Catholic Church. Most of you, at one time or another, have admitted your antiCatholic bigotry. All of you have clearly expressed and documented that hatred here. What did you expect, a dinner party?

Julie, the fact that you relate to Delphin's nonsense and hatred, proves you aren't on the side of goodness, yourself. Congratulations! What a step up religion's been for you. (irony).

How do I get it through your ,obviously, rather thick head? We don't talk about other religions or schools where we wern't raped. We talk about what we know. Where we were raped: The holy roman apostolic catholic church.

Why would I talk about other situations when you are so irresponsible; so hostile to what's been done in your name? Fix yourself first.

Julie- the focus of the bigots here is to continue their drum-beat against the 'holy roman apostolic catholic church', as one of them just revealed. They (he and the little buddy) are fixated on their cowardly back-alley beat down.

The truth is disturbing to them both- which is that it is their own camp members that committed these crimes against minors, and still do outside of the Church. This is why we are constantly directed and demanded to look away from that reality. They care little (if at all) how many more innocents will be sacrificed on their pathethic philosophical and political altar.

You relate to and recognize these truths, even though you have been victimized, and that makes them very, very testy, indeed. It is astounding that they think they're getting over on anybody here.

Must have been their past experiences at getting over that emboldened them so.

I assume New York; L.A. and of course San Francisco must be on your list of "The best godless cities to not live in" I would include the vatican in on that if I were you. You might want to list it towards the top.

What about duck plop nowhere, where you live? Has your fascist brand of catholicism saved it from godlessness? Hmmmm?

I can’t discern the sense or relevance of the analogy “Dennis” deploys here on the 23rd at 856PM: If ‘A’ has a firearm lying around the house would ‘A’ then be more “considered” about ‘A’s neighbor who also has a firearm lying around? And if somebody then shot him/herself with ‘A’s gun, and ‘A’ is being arrested, would ‘A’s defense be that ‘A’ “made sure my neighbor’s house was safe” … ???

But then we get to far more familiar territory: we “don’t seem to understand” that “Dennis” and “Jim” apparently do indeed “know the horrors children are facing at other organizations or schools” but they are “going to take care of our own house first”.

But of course, it isn’t actually their house any longer (“Dennis” has gone so far as to declare himself self-excommunicated, we recall). And so in order to cover that bit of a problem, “Dennis” quickly tosses in “or what use to be we thought our house” [sic]. Thus, we are apparently expected to believe, these two are going to stick with the Catholic Abuse Stampede because (or even though it isn’t any longer) the Church is still somehow ‘their house’.

It’s plausible, no doubt about that. However it is equally plausible that these two are sticking with the Stampede for their own purposes: JR because it seems to be some sort of avocation (despite the numerous dubious elements which he has done nothing to clarify except by asserting and re-asserting the same things over and over again) and “Dennis” – one might imagine – because he has declared himself a victim of Catholic clerical abuse and has to help keep the pot-boiling on the off-chance that his own State will go the SOL-weakening route and open up a fresh payday for him. From what we have seen of their material, I don’t see where this scenario is any less plausible than the proffered ‘victim’ scenario.

All this may seem rather hypothetical and theoretical, but this is precisely what happens when a Stampede is sustained on the daffy but lethal presumption that lack of evidence should not prevent a legal system from declaring the traceable existence of a specific crime and thus ordering (some form of) ‘justice’ for the (un-demonstrated) victims. The whole thing degenerates rapidly and ineluctably into a hall of mirrors where people wind up trying to figure out a dizzying collage of images, because that dizzying collage of images (and stories and claims and assertions) is all that anybody has to work with.

On the 23rd at 946PM JR resorts – so characteristically – to the epithetical. Apparently pointing out the problems with the assertions is nothing but ‘denigrating’ and ‘dehumanization’.

Oh, and the ‘hiding’ bit again.

Again one can see the canniness of the Anderson Strategies: no tortie would want to go to trial burdened with so much fear as to which was going to come apart on the stand first – the story or the witness/allegant.

We are then lectured that “this isn’t a normal dialog”. An observation with which I can completely agree. Stories, claims and assertions are put forward, questions are posed in regard to same, and instead of a coherent and rational response to those questions we are bethumped with a steady stream of the usual Playbook distractions and histrionics and – at best – the mere repetition of the originally questioned (and questionable) points.

And the whole confection topped off with the final frothy epithet. They do like to deliver themselves of pronunciamentos, these Abuseniks. Explaining their specific objections in some detail, not so much at all. So I agree: “this isn’t normal dialog”.

This soap-opera could go on and on: the cafeteria crowd don’t turn in the homework essay, but instead toss on the desk a pile of ketchup-splattered doodles and naughty-words, and then claim that they get no respect for their efforts and that they are being viciously and corruptly bethumped by all sorts of immoral types who have no right to speak up. “This isn’t normal dialog” either.

And on the 24th at 1222AM, more of the same gambit whereby JR would like to comment on the game, but only if everybody agrees to start the ‘victim’ player on first, without having to earn the base by scoring a hit during an at-bat. And anybody who insists on the ball being hit by the batter before the batter goes to his base is simply vicious, corrupt, immoral and (fill in the blank).

The following longer paragraph is simply a repetition (yet again) of the usual talking-points. All of which blocks are neatly put together in a little pile in order to enable the commenter to don the Wig of Victimization (un-demonstrated in any convincing way) and again portray himself as the victim in all of this.

And – doing some “math” here: if we figure a number for all of the opportunities over, say, the past 64 years since 1950, in which a priest in this country might have had the opportunity to abuse a child, and then divide that (astronomical) number by the 12,000 allegations formally lodged (and the numbers have fallen precipitously, especially as to ‘current’ allegations) then we get a number rather well to the right of the decimal point, which indicates a rather low frequency of abuse indeed. (And this calculation presumes the veracity and accuracy of all 12,000 allegations – which presumption I have made merely for the purposes of this exercise.)

And yes, a solution to that problem is to claim that there are – unbeknownst to anybody – a huge number of still-undeclared ‘victims’ who are still out there somewhere. But then one would have to somehow demonstrate that the existence of such myriads was something more than a convenient and self-serving phantasm.

And – again – it is apparently considered ‘shaming’ to ask questions, and to repeat the questions when the same allegations and assertions and stories are simply repeated without any answers to the questions. Neat.

And yet the sustained questioning of material for which no answers are forthcoming is indeed “a natural response”. And it is the sustained avoidance of any answering that is both not-“natural” and also indicates why some threads-of-exchange here are not really “dialog”.

And the gambits of ‘deflecting’ and ‘obscuring’ are precisely part of that avoidance of the issues and questions.

So JR has neatly set up a situation for himself (and the rest of the Abuseniks, perhaps) whereby he “can only think” that he is being bethumped unjustly. How convenient for him (and them). But he can “only think” that because he has arranged all of his block-y bits just-so; a more accurate assessment of his construction would no doubt indicate that there are other ways to “think” about the situation.

And in regard to the trademark concluding “Why?”, I would also point out that “start out respectfully” would take us back to the earliest days when TMR opened itself up for comments, and that was a long time ago, and so going back to the start-out point is a ship that sailed a long time ago. Nor has anything substantially occurred in the subsequent months and years to earn any such ‘respect’. And that’s “Why”.

I paid for the "house" (your church) my antecedents paid for the "house'. I recieved all the sacraments of the "house" (but 2). I was raped in the "house" by the "house" masters. Believe me, I own the house. I may not agree with the "house", i may even bet against the "house's" sillier rules but I and everyother victim still own the "house". Our destroyed lives paid for it.

Now you mock what I look like (to you)? What a class act! Why can't we see your profile? (You're no Barrymore I'll bet). Why do you hide snipping from the shadows? Come ou of the closet honey! Or turn over the rock you live under and let us see the worm you actually are are. Big Bird eats worms like you.

When it rains over the Archdiocese of Philadelphia it pours. Accept this time around its monsoon season,

As the Archdiocese only yesterday released two MORE names to the public of so-called priests who received a pink slip because of credible accusations of sexual abuse, today another one of the catholics finest has begun his travel through the Philadelphia justice system that only some may think has been unkind.

Fr. Mc Cormick is facing numerous charges against a (10) ten year old child. A 10 year old child ? I will stop there before my Irish German anger shows through.

Today was nothing more then both sides dotting theiir I's and crossing their T's with the judge ordering a gag order to both sides.

Jury selection is scheduled to begin tomorrow if we do not see any delays as in past trials.

How horrible! Victims want money. The church asks for money from morning till night and the sun never goes down on the church asking for money all the time. Day and night; month in; month out; year in year out. Give!

But when we tell you the little you've paid is nothing to what you need pay. There are that many uncared for victims. You whine about the $3 bucks a head you have paid. Not only are you immoral but you are so frigging cheap!!!!!

How much have you given away to all those vics for which you claim to mourn?

We gave 3B for mostly fraudulent victims, and trillions over the years to poor and marginilized over the world – what have your peeps given to anybody (aside from disease, degeneracy, despotism and death)?

Are you always so materialistic (quite rhetorical given your persona)?

I bet you look like a puckery ovoid shaped thing found beneath animal tails.

Well I, unlike yourself angelfood, am a material being. So before you fly away home to the lord perhaps you could stop being moron mean towards your opposition. Maybe you could make a stab at kindness. Sir Vitriol …. No you just can not do it. You can't your on fire for the lord and his banker here on earth. Don't let victims get in your way. Dance on their bodies.They're only people.

I'm watching Secrets of the Vatican, on Frontline and gosh oh golly! There's Tom Doyle and Jason Berry. Surprise Surprise!The cast never changes. After 25 years this show's lasted longer than The Fantasticks. But the cast never changes does it? Peter Eisely's in a scene. Those are the only people they could find in America to give the victims POV ,Priests! ????

Last week was very informative regarding the catholic church. We have read from one coast to another the continued wrong-doings of the catholic church. We have also seen in two accounts parishioners stepping forth and more or less saying enough is enough. (parishioners of KC & Newark)

We now have a new week and more sad news of how the catholic church operates.

Beginning on Sunday the Archdiocese of Philadelphia had announced the kicking to the curb of two more of its clergy members for credible accusations of child abuse. Then on Monday we see the beginning of the trial for Andrew McCormick a priest accused of sexually abusing a 10 year old , and only one day later we see the law suit filed by a high school principal filed against who you ask ? The Archdiocese of Philadelphia.

I for sometime I have known about the claims of this case and I am not shocked by the filing.

I will say that Pennsylvania is a "at will" state when it comes to employment and will explain that in case nobody knows it means an employee can terminate their employment for no reason and an employer can do the same unless a contract is involved.

However, the law is very clear that no employee maybe terminated because of sexual harrassment or criminal actions of either the employer or other employees.

I think once this case comes to light. We will see this teacher with an endless smile from ear to ear that nobody will be able to wipe off.

On the 24th at 720PM JR again starts the play at first rather than with an at-bat: “victims” are the ones who “want money” – when all along the problem has been that nobody knows who is a genuine victim and who is otherwise-classifiable (but also wants money).

And if he would care to solve that vital primary problem by giving us some demonstrable evidence for the assertion that “there are that many uncared for victims” [sic] then wouldn’t that be nice? Or are we going to be told that JR doesn’t have to do our homework for us? But this, of course, would be more like the homework he had already done before he went and made the assertion in the first place.

Thus then – theoretically speaking, of course – is it not immoral (not to mention criminal) to acquire any amount of money (no matter how small) by perjuriously lodging false official claims?

Clergy sex crimes and their aftermath are definitely not fun to research and write about. Nevertheless, it is my responsibility to thoroughly research many and varied valid sources to understand or at least be aware of opinions, and to make every possible effort to find out the truth.

It is easier to write and advocate from one’s ‘side’ of an issue with the weight of research on the ‘side’ of that perspective. It is wise though to know all that can be known. Knowing and fair treatment does not have to result in exonerating people who commit crimes and other injustices.

With this research, with careful consideration, and with empathy, I hope to have a balanced view of people, entities, incidents, conditions, and circumstances in order that my writing will be as savvy as possible. That is what I hope for from people, particularly those who are public about issues.

Before Judge Bright imposed the gag order on Monday, defense attorney William J. Brennan Jr. complained about the archdiocese's weekend announcement of the suspensions of two more priests – the Rev. James J. Collins and the Rev. John P. Paul – for substantiated claims of sexually abusing minors more than 40 years ago.

Readers may have noticed that certain exchanges do not constitute a “normal dialog”.

More examples from JR occur on the 25th at 11AM and 1124AM.

At 11AM I am uncertain to whom he addresses the remark that someone is mocking what he looks like. I certainly don’t know what he looks like and physical characteristics have absolutely nothing to do with any issues I have considered or – for that matter – do I think they have anything to do with the matters this site considers.

But again we see a mere repetition (for the umpteenth time) of a fundamentally irrelevant point: “Why can’t we see your profile?” and “Why do you hide snipping from the shadows?” [sic; JR’s military experience apparently didn’t extend to such matters as ‘sniping’, although I have already said that my comments are more properly analogous to artillery barrages, and it is actually JR’s that are the single-shot one-liners and such that would be akin to ‘sniping’ with a single rifle].

What of any relevance to this site’s concerns would there be in seeing a (photographic?) “profile” of me or of any other commenter? And who would be able to say – and of what possible relevance would it be – to know the physical appearance such that perhaps a commenter might look like a worm?

But again, this obsessive repetition of the point by JR actually reveals something more strategic: in order to toss plop (rather than deal with concepts and ideas) inveterate plop-tossers (not to put too fine a point on it) need ‘plop’. They are neither equipped-for or interested-in dealing with ideas and issues and rational and coherent assessment of same. They are more interested in tossing ketchup-packets at other students than engaging their ideas, we might say.

That also explains why JR isn’t interested-in or worked-up-about the screen-monikers of Abuseniks who post here: since they agree with him, then they are not potential targets for the plop-toss.

But I thought the Big-Bird bit was cutesy. And the “come out of the closet, honey” bit was – once again – indicative of some of that weird undertow in some commenters’ material. Not my problem, though.

Then at 1124AM JR – for the umpteenth time – avoids the actual gravamen of the problem and tries to get the game going from first-base rather than an at-bat at the plate: the actual issue is not that “there are so few victims” but rather that we have no way of knowing how many are genuine as opposed to ‘otherwise classifiable’. And this is the core problem that the Abuseniks avoid like the plague, recoiling from it like vampires from holy water.

And thus the actual problem is: how or why compensate allegants when one doesn’t know if they are genuinely entitled or merely … ‘otherwise classifiable’? At no time has any Abusenik ever attempted to help answer that question of determining genuine from otherwise; and perhaps understandably so.

Instead we simply get the constant repetition of global assertions that there are not many false-claims at all – although utterly no supporting evidence or rationale or sources have ever been proffered for examination.

And lastly, I have just noticed a JR comment from the 20th at 1242PM.

We are informed that “The U.S. government killed Malcolm X”. There is no supporting evidence proffered (But why should there be? JR is such a knowledgeable truth-teller, after all). Three members of his religious group were convicted, and later one of the convicted named other members of the group as also being involved.

Then – as if he had made clear and rational and demonstrated arguments for it all – he claims (having donned the Wig of Honest Frustration) that he has “told you again and again” that “SNAP’s overall purpose is to ameliorate damage to the catholic corporate church by controlling the linking up of victims”.

And the three billion or so in Church payouts is an indication of … success?

Or – more to this gist here – are we to imagine that theoretically, by erecting SNAP, the Church has prevented the linking-up of victims? Are these persons so utterly helpless that they cannot or could not have found – in the age of the Web – ways to reach-out and join? Surely they could have gone even to some site like the National Catholic Reporter – always friendly to their agenda – and gotten some help in organizing something. Even JR might have done that – but neither he nor anybody else has apparently ever done anything along those lines, for whatever reason(s).

And while JR then repeats yet again his bit about SNAP conferences being too expensive to get to, yet – as I said in comments a while ago about the 10th anniversary world-conference in Boston in 2012 – there were almost no attendees , less than a hundred, and at the obligatory Sunday morning ‘demonstration’ in front of that city’s cathedral there were so few that the Boston Globe photographer was hard-pressed to make them seem like anything more than a mere gaggle. Is he saying that in the New England area (the States, I recall, are rather small in that region) nobody among the myriad of ‘victims’ could attend? Nobody from even the Boston metro area (except that less than a hundred in the audience and the gaggle at the cathedral)?

And are we really to believe that so primitive and obviously manipulative a maneuver as playing loud music so that ‘victims’ can’t talk to one another … is actually a standard procedure? First, couldn’t folks step outside and do their talking? Second, wouldn’t at least some of those folks have taken as the subject of their serious concern the very obvious fact that they were being so clearly manipulated? No exchange of emails? No post-conference talks among themselves? Nothing? At all?

If JR’s theory here is correct, then it raised even more stunning questions than it resolves.

And wasn’t JR there to help organize folks with these thoughts of his? He worked with SNAP for years and years, if I recall his claim correctly. So what does all this say about his own (lack of) effort in this matter?

There aren't that many victims who question SNAP. There aren't that many victims at SNAP conferences. I've told you that again and again: the vast majority of attendees at SNAP conferences are supporters not victims. Also victims ,on the whole, don't question SNAP's credentials. That's how black opps work. They are so cross authenticated by "authorities" no one looks deeper

In L.A., reporter after reporter from the L.A. Times were assigned to cover L.A. 's settlement and victims., here. They were transferred again and again after very little time with the subject. No over all analysis was made by the 4th estate (press) because there was not one consistant reporter.

Who does one go to when there's no one there? Time after time i wrote; Emailed; called. I have made every attempt possible to have serious talks with the press. Zippo.

But as usual last night on Frontline there were the usual cast of characters Doyle; Berry; and Jeff Anderson. All the victims shown still active catholics. Yet all 4 of the 4 victims posting here (Julie, is sadly a victim but not of clerical abuse, sexually) are no longer catholics. Dennis and Kay still are deists, LDB and myself, athiests but none of us, clerical activist victims, are catholic anymore. You wouldn't guess those demographics as being anywhere near accurate if you watched the show last night. It was, all catholic all the time. And lots of priests being "helpful". (Yea right!)

Average people want to believe religious people are good, even when there's absolutely no proof that they are. That works for the scam. All con games require BELIEF in the con artists. (Belief is also required for the penultimate con game: religion. IMHO)

Believe me, funny how you believe in fantasy after fantasy regarding life after death but real victims never. You are, indeed, pieces of work.

Let's say I'm nuts. I'n a paranoid who's so f'd up I've gone insane and made this all up about Doyle; Berry; Anderson and SNAP. Why? What's in it for me? I've been compensated; and much more than most. What benefits me from "inventing" this conspiracy? Why, if I'm so obviously wrong in my analysis, has no reporter ever looked deeper into SNAP's, not very deep background? Not one. "Sweetheart" unions and false flag efforts are not unheard of in the history of powerful organizations. But no, I'm the nut case? BUNK!

Though the opposition disagrees with me intensely here about my beliefs and my choices. I think I've come off here as relatively a reasonable person. (foot meet mouth) Seriously. You may disagree with me. But I attempt to be logical.You respond to my arguements as if they are wrong but not irrational.

What do I get for saying the things I say? How does it benefit me to say SNAP and Doyle are frauds. (Doyle's still a priest for god's sake! Why didn't he resign? ) It's get's me nowhere, slow, to put out what i do. Why? Would you do what I do, if you didn't believe you were telling the truth? I am the only victim (I've met )with enough of an activist past to make the analysis, I've made.

Referencing SNAP's loud music: There was usually 10 minutes between "events" at SNAP conferences. You might talk to 1 or 2 people in that interval but you usually talk to your friends first and there were never introductions, cross fertilizations, made by SNAP.( Also since the majority of people at SNAP conferences were "supporters" not victims. Your odds of meeting and connecting with other victims were very low)

. Kay had a national blog that was widely read. was she introduced? Never. I went to jail for my protest was i ever introduced. No. Instead non victim speakers were heralded and treated like heroes and given hours to speak. Hell the San Diego Chicken mascot (not a victim) was our first "motivational speaker" But victims speak? never. Does that sound like a real victims movement to you?

Regarding the attendee's at SNAP's press event : Boston's10th anniversary. Who do you think tells victims there's a SNAP event? SNAP tells victims. How do you know SNAP wanted that event to be anything other than a failure? they have the e mails addresses; we don't. Who knows to whom; and when and IF any were invited to participate at X time at X place by SNAP.

I did go to the National Catholic Reporter and I was banned. BANNED for questioning the authenticity of SNAP. I'm still banned. I wrote the editor again and again. My answer from them? Banned. (The system really works to protect the system.)

You should rightfully be paying billions more than you have. Remember, you have the statutes of limitations working for your side not ours. Between SNAP's efforts and the statutes you've gotten off cheaply. Imagine if we victims had been able to connect, not under a sweetheart false flag group like SNAP but a group working for us. Demanding reparations constantly as compared to SNAP? You wouldn't have stood a chance at getting away with paying the little out you have. (And your insurers paid half.)

NYPD officers were removed from the hall where Malcolm was to speak. Cops who were always watching gone. Ordered out. Why? Who had the power to do that, the Hon. Elijah Muhammed? I don't think so. But you know everything about everything. Right!

D, Why should I pay for what your church has done? I didn't rape or allow others to rape. Why is everyone else supposed to pick up the tab for your corporate church's crimes? Everyone must pay except the church?

Again I have to tell you: Had you done the right thing from the get go; you'd have no problem. You could end your scandal now by doing the right thing by all your victims. But no, you deny and attack. Deny and attack! Some christian! You make pagans look good comparitively.

On the 26th at 1150AM, in regard to the problem of false-claims, JR proclaims that "fakes are your problem, not ours, the real victims".

But that really isn't accurate at all. Every false allegant subtracts from the credibility of any genuine allegant – and, as we have seen, allegants don't like being doubted.

And every element that increases the probability of a specifc allegation being false then also raises the possibility of others being false. Thus any story in which, say, the dots don't connect or the questions raised elicit answers that are even more questionable and raise even more complications … none of this does allegants any good at all.

And, of course, we get the inevitable sly insertion about JR and the rest of "the real victims" – yet again. We can take JR's word for it all or we can be 'socipathic' but those are about the only options, apparently.

I see a great amount of pixels have been devoted to SNAP and I will get to those comments shortly.

Your church hierarchy created an illegal and an immoral situation. Transferring, known to them, rapists of minors to rape again.

You get false claims? Too f'ing bad! You haven't shown proof for even one false claim, that hasn't been busted. False claims are your problem not ours. I agree false claims are crap for us too but where are they? Where are your hoardes of false claiments? How about 10 fraudulent claims? Got anything at all? …If not; what? What are real victims supposed to do about the mess you created??

I need to say more about Frontline last night. What a stupid show. It was all over the place "secret files and speculation" The music was ludicrous.

If any of you have Tivo I hope you all taped it. It's a goldmine. I am re-watching it now.

First notice the colors, Berry, Doyle; Anderson and Eisely wear Blue and Red, all of them. Blue for the blue states and red for the red states just your average middle of the road Americans(.No planning there)

But fr. Doyle wears a manly yet soft green corduroy jacket with a blue shirt and a red tie.( one's supposed to think of him as a green party member too, I suppose.) Yet all Doyle talks about is himself (per usual)

(They showed the same old" Jesus would be with the victims" speech from VOTF, Doyle gave at the beginning of the scandal.) That's hero Doyle. Always talking about his lost career as a priest, and yet he's still a priest??? It took 7 years of being in charge of these cases at the vatican embassy in D.C. for him to "moral it up" to leave the church to help victims?

Only 7 years to do the right thing?

Yet he never but rarely mentions victims at all. When he does he speaks using the words "We" and "our" and "us" all the inclusive words but he never makes any inclusive actions. So interesting!

Funny but he's all you see every show. There's fr Tom telling the truth about the guilt of the hierarchy ( That gets the religious catholics off the hook. Thanks to the good fr. Tom; we, the public know they, the good catholics know what was done was wrong which means therefor the church knows it's done wrong and is "doing something about 'it'" The good priest is fighting for victims, see?)( Oh yes! We see.)

Fr. Tom helps victims by talking then vanishing? And end of scene, curtain. the show's over. Till the next time fr. Tom is needed to hose down the fires. Where's the reform movement in the church fr. Tom's connected to? Anybody?

Berry wears a blue suit with a very red tie. Berry, the one reporter from the beginning in Louisianna to now. What no other expert reporters in America on the subject? With an audience big enough to have network after network doing shows on the abuse crisis in the church.There is only one reporter overall in all of America that speaks on the subject and that is the very catholic Jason Berry? Jason Berry who authenticated SNAP and Blaine calling her a hero on the Donahue show as he sat next to fr Greelly. All a part of the black opp, the false flag effort for victims that is SNAP.

Sorry Instead of 7 years Doyle was only incharge of all the cases in the U.S. at the vatican embassy. But then he started" meeting victims" and we "were no longer just names on paper." And he's been talking ever since always stating the obvious regarding the hierarchy but never talking about victims other than using us as a reference that cements his own virtue, subtle isn't it?

On the 26th at 1106 we are told now that “there aren’t many victims who question SNAP” or its “credentials”. Why might that be? Are we to believe that out of all the ‘victims’ only JR and a couple-three others have seen through the whole thing?

And just what are the “black ops” [correction supplied] and how do they work and who or what is behind the scenes? And instead of a simple re-asserting of the same un-supported lucubrations might we get some sort of coherent rational or explanation as how that is all supposed to work?

And out of all the ‘victims’ only a couple-three have even noticed any of this? Is that plausible?

And if JR is to be believed, there has been no “one consistent reporter” [correction supplied] then what theory does he have to explain that? Just about the entire LA media establishment is somehow conspiring against JR? And yet it happily continued on after the Church and published bits of the document cache. Is it possible that it took a while to find a reporter who was willing to publish Stampede-friendly articles even after they had discovered the actual dynamics and realities of the Stampede?

And why almost the entire LA media establishment chose at some point not to be associated with JR … yes, that certainly is a question.

Then a distracting bit about a Frontline show. The relevance of “active catholics” remains utterly obscure; and to what extent the still-Father Doyle is still characterizable as an “active catholic’ – or any of the others, for that matter – is anybody’s guess.

There is no way that JR can credibly assert that anybody else here is a genuine victim: he was not present at the moment of the alleged abuse and it appears that in some cases he has never even met the other Abuseniks face-to-face but only online. So much for the credibility of his characterization as to the genuineness of anybody else’s allegations. And we have discussed his own at length here.

Then we are instructed by JR as to what “average people want to believe”. Readers may judge for themselves.

Nor does JR’s effort to change the subject to the “fantasy after fantasy” in regard to “life after death” really work except to highlight the very very real possibilities of the Stampede allegations comprising “fantasy after fantasy” – although even there, they may be deliberately burnished for the purposes of making a snazzier allegation, if not actually deliberately fabricated.

And the same dynamic of coming to believe one’s fantasies to the point of being unable to separate fantasy from reality actually bounces back to cast an unkindly light on the Abuseniks, does it not?

Let the record show that it is JR who proposes for the purposes of discussion that he is “nuts” and “paranoid” and all the rest. “What’s in it for me?” he plaints. That is a question about him personally that I am not going to attempt to answer. But the textbook possibilities in regard to such a possibility include a self-serving projection of one’s own issues or guilt-causing actions upon others in order to avoid the pressures of one’s own guilt, as well as the psychological benefits of somehow casting oneself in a more ‘heroic’ role than one fears is true about oneself. Those are just general bits. Whether they or other even more convoluted possibilities of ‘payoff’ for embracing such theories as he might espouse or assert actually and specifically apply to him is not something I am going to get into, and is not suitable material for the purposes of this site.

But one author – D’Antonio – has written an entire book on the subject of Anderson and his relationship to SNAP. Since I mentioned the book quite some time ago, has JR not bothered to read it? And if my theories are correct, then the mainstream media are not interested in undermining SNAP, the activities of which have served them (as well as Anderson) so well.

Thus the (self-serving) conclusion “Bunk!” [exaggerated formatting omitted] is certainly not warranted, not by any material we have seen here so far.

Whether JR has demonstrated in his “beliefs and choices” (of theory, I imagine) that he is “a relatively reasonable person” is for the readership to decide. I would personally disagree.

And I – for one – certainly do question their rationality and logical grounding and have explained why at length many times in specific analysis of some of those beliefs and theories.

JR now tries to excuse his rather unimpressive record of making-contacts in his “YEARS and YEARS” [his own exaggerated formatting from a prior comment retained here] of “working with” SNAP by saying that there was only a short interval between “events” at SNAP conferences. And those few and brief intervals were the only times he ever could make contact with anybody?

And if almost no ‘victims’ attended SNAP gatherings, and yet they didn’t realize SNAP’s actual operational dynamics and objectives, then what does that say about ‘victims’?

As far as ‘Kay’ having a “widely read” blog, we are still waiting for a definitive and accurate link to the Economus material in regard to the role of the Sinsinawa nuns. Why was she not introduced? Prescinding from the possibility that she was not judged to be a very reliable speaker (for whatever reasons) by the SNAP staff, my theory would explain that by the fact that her ideas would simply interfere with the actual tortie-driven agenda for which SNAP was enlisted to be the front-organization. But that does nothing to connect SNAP to the Church or demonstrate in any way that SNAP is a tool of the Church (rather than of the torties).

Or perhaps SNAP figured (or realized) that ‘Kay’ – among others – was not a genuine victim. I don’t know. But why SNAP didn’t call upon JR and ‘Kay’ – who had allegedly worked with SNAP for all that time – certainly doesn’t move things any closer to a demonstration of the fact that SNAP is a tool of the Church (rather than of the torties).

I have never asserted that SNAP was “a real victims’ movement” [correction supplied]. I have simply worked to point out that we have utterly nothing to indicate that SNAP is a tool of the Church (rather than of the torties).

Then on the 16th at 1119AM we are told by JR that only SNAP informs victims of SNAP events. Yet media reporting covers these events and certainly anybody who wished to could keep up with the SNAP site if for no other reason than to know what the schedule of conferences was. Why do so very very few ‘victims’ not do so? If almost all of them don’t realize that SNAP is not actually working for them, then why is it that so few of them evince any interest? Are they not interested? Are the ones who have already gotten their checks no longer concerned? And if so, then what does that tell us?

And in all of their combined years and years of working-with SNAP, did JR and ‘Kay’ not get access to any listings of victims? Just who closely, really, did they work-with SNAP at all?

Then on the 26th at 1133AM JR reports that the National Catholic Reporter “BANNED” [exaggerated formatting retained] him. And why might that have been? Is the NCRep also a tool of the Church? And what “system” is it, precisely, that is referred-to here? In my theory, it is the “system” that works to protect and continue the Stampede for its own purposes, and that “system” is comprised of a congeries of interests outside-of and inside-of the Church that are hostile to the Church to the extent that they wish to undermine its credibility and public stature.

And on the 26th at 1140AM JR merely asserts that “you” (meaning the Church) “should be paying billions more than you have”. No rationale or explanation or demonstration of why that might be (unless you wish to simply accept his assertions as to myriads of genuine victims and still-unreported victims as accurate and true, despite the curiously but profoundly non-interest that most such persons have consistently displayed across the board.

And again, it remains well within the realm of probability that this imagined “we victims” remains simply that: a figment of somebody’s imagination (let alone trying to determine who is ‘genuine’ and who is ‘otherwise classifiable’).

Thus the “sweetheart false flag group” that is SNAP may well remain, as in my theory, a tool of the torties and working for their agenda and objectives rather than any purpose of the Church. And once again, we are left with only JR’s dream (or daydream or pipedream) about all these hypothetical victims ‘connecting’.

My dear boy all, all SNAP's mailing list was held by SNAP. Never shared. "Victims could be harmed if they were known", says SNAP.

And aren't you fast off the block with your response. You raped minors stupid! That's what your system gave you. Enough raped minors to cause your church to jump through hoops it never had to jump through before. Enough raped minors to get the world's attention. You are an idiot.

I have repeatedly asked K to connect you to the information. Information I gave you years ago. Information I want you to have. But typically, nothing from K on this. I do not control other people. Her interests are survival at this point like most American workers. I have asked her twice and nothing.

SNAP , 9 times out of 10 called us the night before any press event they would stage. 9 times out of 10. That's how little time they gave us to process their choices. Actually it was more like 10 times out of 10. And they behaved the exact same way across the country.

Do you have a pile of victims or do you not? You are the one's screaming false claims (showing none by the way) and whining about what you have paid.

Your church has all the info; victims only have our own indivdual rapes.

You have all the info. we don't; but you aren't producing any statistically significant number of false claims. Why not? Wouldn't that turn the world in your favor? Trot 'em out! Let's see what you've got. Otherwise you are just imagining false claims.

I'm saying our torties could very, very easily be the church. And or picked by the church to do what torties do. After watching Jeff Anderson last night does anybody see him as the brains behind anything????? He's the top tortie in this massive scandal? He's the best most skilled lawyer? Really? Run the tape back. See him speaking to a jury? That's top drawer legalling to you?

I worked at the L.A. Weekly a newpaper in L.A. I did do some articles but was never a reporter per se. I had been a messenger there; then in charge of security I wrote Best of L.A. an article on Lance Loud and an art article on Sequieros, the Mexican muralist.. Kay recieved her degree in journalism from Texas A and M, I think,. But she worked in the press dept. for NASA and was being groomed at one point for spokes person for NASA. That's our background. Others who figured out SNAP is the church is an antique dealer in the mid-west, a victim in Boston and another in Michigan, all with no degrees (including myself).

D'Antonio's book I have not read. It was promoted by Doyle and SNAP, Why would I bother? I know it didn't go past the false authentications. Or it wouldn't have been promoted by Frick and Frack and you. Why don't you send me your copy P? I'll ready it and mail it back.

Oh! I forgot. You and D live in the shadows Beyond addresses and names..

Well, let’s attend to ‘process’ first, as the therapists say. We see that JR has submitted a bunch of shortish bits – which neatly avoids his having to deal at any length with any of the substantive issues or questions. Instead, we get a bunch of rat-a-tat handfuls of tossed stuff; the short posts are so much easier for tossing handfuls of stuff.

On the 26th at 753PM, I am addressed (the Wig of Downton Abbey Dowager) as “My dear boy” – lah de dah. And a Wig this far out is probably going to indicate that JR has run off the rails.

Sure enough: SNAP held its mailing list closely and was “never shared”. Oh. Except that JR had told us that he and ‘Kay’ had worked with SNAP for “YEARS and YEARS” … so either they didn’t really work very closely or within the organization or else they had access to the lists and never bestirred themselves to copy them (once they realized that SNAP’s agenda was not primarily concerned with victims’ needs).

Then we get more derailment. I was “fast off the block” with my “response” – that’s a problem? And then: “You raped minors stupid!” – which is the point where I remind JR that JR has reminded us that he too is subject to libel laws.

Oh, and also “You are an idiot”. My bet is that if I am an “idiot”, I am a pretty accurately-observing kind of idiot and have hit more than a few nails on the head. And the only fry-fly response to that is name-calling. The varsity they ain’t.

Then on the 26th at 802PM JR claims to have given us information about Economus “years ago”. He did not – he simply made the assertion (which in his mind seems to equate to giving “information”) and recently, when asked for a link to the material, simply put up an email address for ‘Kay’. But – always one to find a way to the ‘victim’ Wig and stage – JR will assume that like all “American workers” she is just trying for “survival” – although I note that she has the time, in the midst of her ‘survival’ issues, to compose and submit comments here.

And having “asked her twice and nothing”, has it yet dawned on JR that the evidence he has asserted might not actually exist?

At this point, what JR claims about his SNAP experiences really have to be simply left alone as utterly unreliable. In light of the profound disconnect about the depth and extent of his ‘years and years’ involvement with SNAP as noted above, then I think we are just heading deeper into a house of mirrors.

On the 26th at 810PM JR asks “Do you have a pile of victims or do you not?”. Which almost gets-it; the actual question would have to be phrased “a pile of genuine victims or not” – and will JR have any thoughts as to how to establish that authenticity? My bet is: No.

The burden of proof is on the accuser, and that means the allegants and torties: and so far we have seen little to indicate that their veracity and accuracy is almost completely reliable and beyond question. JR’s sly effort to make the readership the accuser (for ‘accusing’ the accusers of making false claims) in this dynamic isn’t going to work.

What is “all the info” that the Church has? And note again the effort to simply bring things back to the Wig of Victimization and to first-base (rather than any at-bat at home plate): we don’t really know who was a genuine victims of “rapes” and who wasn’t. This is the source of another queasy and weird undertow in Abusenik material: they always work toward making sure that whatever is under discussion is somebody else’s fault. MY own thought that this is a substantial dynamic operative in the Stampede – and we see again the brilliance of the Anderson Strategies in providing a chute by which the types could be funneled into the claim-stream without any of the major players actually having to risk being too closely associated with them.

As for me “just imagining false claims” this is merely another indication of JR”s usual fry-fly I’m Not/You Are type of comeback (not to be confused with either a) a thought of b) a response or answer).

Then on the 26th at 819PM a whine that I should stop correcting JR and try correcting “your incorrect church”. Awwwwwwww. JR is victimized yet again.

Then on the 26th at 823PM, JR claims never to have cast himself as a hero. Well, he and Dennis have envisioned themselves in material here as being the only ones speaking for victims against such evil and immoral and stupid and – most recently – ‘idiotic’ types, so perhaps JR would like to examine himself a bit more closely. And this whole bit about being the only one or almost the only one speaking ‘for victims’ while (we are to believe) SNAP, Bishop-Accountability, the Church, the media in LA, and (we shall soon see below) the torties themselves are all in league against him … that pretty much sets up the script for JR to be the Hero, does it not? (And so he is both Hero and Victim – neat two-fer.)

And of all the things that apparently “just needs doing” for all of the (alleged) victims, just what – again – has JR done? His “years and years” of working-with SNAP apparently yielded nothing substantial at all.

Then, on the 26th at 830PM JR actually does – marvelously – allow as how victims’ own tort attorneys “could very, very easily be the church”. Which makes no sense as written but let’s try to save time and presume JR means to say that the torties too are in on the league against him and that the Church controls them just it does like the above-mentioned elements.

And JR claims that his observation of Anderson reveals little evidence of Anderson’s skill (and yet Anderson’s Strategies have reaped billions) – so who are we going to believe: JR or our own lying eyes?

On the 27th at 1111AM we are given sketches but no information about a couple-three others around the country who – JR would have us believe – also figured out SNAP. Well, readers can take that for the evidentiary value it’s worth.

And on the 27th at 1057 JR absolves himself from having read D’Antonio because “Doyle and SNAP promoted it”. Apparently, simply wanting to inform oneself about possible information in an area about which one claims to be profoundly active and interested … has no traction for JR. But as I have always said, plop-tossers aren’t interested in books or ideas – only plop-tossing.

I got my compensation, remember? No body is in league against me but you. SNAP and Anderson are in league against all victims. And???? You still haven't come up with my motivation for doing this work. I won't be seen to be "heroic" if I'm lying about the black opp called SNAP. So I only win that hero prize when I'm proven correct. You don't think that's going to happen? Stranger things have happened.

And you say I'm not right. Like you know something. You're behind a screen. Hiding and shouting out: Saul Alinsky raped the kids not fr. F&%k!

Good luck. Senator Joe. Do you have a list of names to accompany your Red Herring?

More from the hall of mirrors: on the 27th at 614PM JR tries the usual Playbook gambit of drawing an illogical conclusion from material, then making objection to the (conveniently misread) bit he has himself put up, and thus refuting his own incorrect assertions as to what was originally said. As I have said, the whole Abusenik thing becomes a hall of mirrors very quickly.

We precisely do not know – nor have the Abuseniks nor the document-releases really demonstrated – just what did or did not go on. That’s been the problem with the Stampede all along. But that is also precisely the scam at the heart of the Stampede that has enabled it and sustained it: nobody actually knows, too many presume to know, and the Stampede – according to the tenets noted by LeBon and prescribed by Hitler and Alinsky – rolled on.

Nor will JR be able to demonstrate with any accurate quotation where I had blamed Alinsky for anything. I had pointed out the congruence of his ideas and method with the Stampede.

Then on the 27th at 626PM JR reminds us that it was about the money since his first thought is that he “got [his] compensation”. I would say he got his check; nothing else has been demonstrated to characterize it as anything else at this point.

Then more illogic, flowing from the fact that fry-flies only try to make come-backs to the most immediate material, and don’t give thought to whether what they are going to say is coherently connected to anything else they might have said at some earlier point.

Thus, here, JR now says that “no body is in league against me but you … SNAP and Anderson are in league against all victims”. So then … a) I am not “against victims” but only against JR; but JR is a victim (of one sort or the other).

And, but of course, I am “in league [with myself?] against him” because I want the play to begin with a demonstrated hit from an at-bat at home plate rather than starting things at first-base, as the Anderson Strategies, the Stampede, the Abuseniks, and JR require.

I have indeed “come up with [his] motivation for doing this work”, but I couched it in general terms so as not to be too inflammatory and intrusive by personalizing it. He can read my comment on this thread from the 26th at 633PM in the paragraph beginning “Let the record show”. I will try again, in general terms: there are psychological pay-offs that might easily and well account for this “motivation”. And: Yes, that then leads to the hardly improbable possibility that what we have been seeing is a rather extended acting-out (in pixels) of a personal soap-opera, but (if my theory is correct) it is what it is. Enough said on that.

JR is accurate when he says that he “won’t be seen as ‘heroic’ if [he is] lying about the black opp called SNAP”[sic; JR’s military experience apparently didn’t extend to his knowing military terminology: the term is ‘black op’ or ‘black ops’]. But that doesn’t really cover the bases here: he won’t be seen as ‘heroic’ if he is demonstrated to have been ‘otherwise classifiable’ in terms of his original claim and story, but he – in best tortie and Abusenik fashion – has worked very hard to make sure that that eventuality doesn’t have a chance to arise.

And in regard to his theories about SNAP itself (insofar as it is a tool of the Church, along with a whole bunch of other co-conspiratorial elements such as the Anderson, the torties, and the media), it remains now a hardly unlikely probability that his credibility – and thus his ‘heroism’ – has already been undermined by the palpable non-credibility of either his theory or his attempts (such as they have been) to defend or explain his theory.

And he is accurate when he makes the characterization of the possibility of his someday being “proven correct”: “stranger things have happened”. But would you buy a used-car from a salesman who assures you – in response to your question as to whether the car is reliable – by saying “stranger things have happened” … ? Would you invest in a stock-fund when the broker – in response to the question as to whether you are going to be seeing sustained returns in the 10-percent-annually range – merely says “stranger things have happened” … ?

And again JR will have to produce a quote (an accurate quote) from my material as to where I say he is “not right”. I have pointed out the improbabilities and the problems with the claims and assertions that he has made. That is the most one can do in this hall of mirrors of a Stampede. I don’t “know” and – especially as arranged by the Anderson Strategies – nobody really knows or at this point can know. That’s the entire problem here: it has become a matter of probabilities because nobody can “know” how to distinguish truth from fiction in the assorted stories, claims, allegations and assertions. So the best he could say here is: I consider his assorted stories, claims, allegations and assertions to be highly improbable.

And then at this point, in “a normal dialog”, his job would be to work to reduce the improbability by i) better explaining his theories or ii) changing his theories. There is a third option here of course: avoid the improbability through that panoply of Abusenik Playbook dodges and distractions.

And that’s precisely what JR then does here in his next paragraph: he goes for that third option by raising the red-herring distractions about me “hiding” myself “behind a screen” and “shouting out” (nice projection: it is not my comments that are peppered with scream-y capitals).

And what he claims I am “shouting out” is another clear deployment of the distraction gambits of the Playbook: he creates a mis-reading of my Alinsky material and thus claims that I said that “Saul Alinsky raped the kids” and not some priest.

I have never equated Saul Alinsky with rape and as far as “rape” goes, that is one of the smallest percentages of claims made in the formal allegations tallied up by the Jay Reports.

And the whole distraction is then further reinforced by the deployment of scatology – which among the cafeteria types is apparently a valid element in “dialog” toward assessing and making points.

Readers can see here some clear and almost-textbook examples of the Playbook in action.

On the 27th at noon we get from JR a link as to how “controlling public opinion has been studied and charted”.

I could also recommend Gustave LeBon’s classic The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind and also the relevant portions of Hitler’s Mein Kampf (in which we discover that even before he met Goebbels Hitler was very canny and informed on the subject of how to manipulate public opinion for his own purposes). I have recommended both of these books in prior comments.

I could also again recommend Saul Alinsky’s 1971 Rules for Radicals as even more topical and relevant to the Stampede; it is a step by step manual on now to create a PR crisis for your targeted individual or organization.

About the only major element of Alinsky that wasn’t incorporated into the Stampede was his thinking on how the “organizer” can “maneuver and bait the establishment so that it will publicly attack him as a ‘dangerous enemy’”. Victimism basically side-stepped the necessity for this step by going back to MeinKampf’s ideas on how to demonize one’s target (through selective focus on only the bits convenient to your agenda and insistently exaggerating your target’s evil and monstrousness); by using the horror of the crime (alleged) against the victim, Victimists (and later, Abuseniks) could manipulate public opinion to simply presume that the alleged crime was committed in the first place, and thus get the game started from the far more convenient first-base.

Whereas Alinsky presumed an unsympathetic media establishment, the Victimist movement here – similar to Hitler in Germany in the 1930s – realized that the media establishment was largely going to be a very receptive and willing collaborator in the spread of such ‘stories’, satisfying the post-1960’s media need for emotionally-gripping stories to keep up circulation and the journalistic calling’s need in that era to feel that it was not simply ‘reporting’ history but ‘making’ history. And that ‘making history’ rather nicely captures the lengths to which the media were willing and eager to go. As we have seen.

A last point here: in my immediately previous comment there is a “MY” in there that is merely a typo: the ‘M’ is capitalized because it begins a sentence; the capital ‘Y’ is a typo.